


Undercover Best Friend

by RedLetter121



Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Action & Romance, Angst, Best Friends, Duality of Jae, F/M, Fluff, Jae and Brian as Friends, Jae's POV, Secret Identity, Sungjin shows up - sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 11:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18260336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedLetter121/pseuds/RedLetter121
Summary: Jae is an overprotective best friend and Cass is boy crazy in a world where men are trash. This is a problem for them until Jae has a Clark Kent moment. Several of them. And it just might be what saves Cass.





	1. Him?!

"I think I'm in love!" said Cassandra.

"No, you're not. You always say that, and it always turns out that he's never the right guy for you. I doubt there's any difference this time," I spoke, sipping on my soda.

"Oh, what do you know? I'm sure of it this time. I can smell it in the air!" She talked back, swirling around her drink with her nose in the air. I stared at her, almost not believing that this was the same girl I met years ago. How did it end up like this?

"Well, for one thing, I've known you for quite a while now. Let's say around five years? And you've probably fallen into that ditch once every month! In fact, sometimes weekly, or even daily! Don't you think that it's starting to get… tiring?" I replied.

"Tiring?" she smirked with an eyebrow raised. “Are you serious? I could keep going.”

I exhaled. This conversation felt so pointless. "I mean, why can't you just stick with your friends? Those guys are never your type any way." I told her, like as if I haven't told her a million times already.

"Max is different!" she retorted. I practically choked and I spewed out the soda I was drinking. What?! It was Max?!

After I recovered, I burst out, "Max?! You're going out with MAX?! You're going out with him?! He’s a douchebag! How can you even think about going out with Max?!" I felt my patience reach its breaking-point. I slammed the coke in my hand on the table, causing brown liquid to erupt up and fall back down over my fingers. The room hushed. "You know what?! I've had enough!"

I stood up from my seat and everyone at the cafe stared at me. Ignoring them, I continued, "I can't keep up with all of your break-ups, and I'm sick of trying to fix things up for you! I am totally fed up with having to prevent these problems for you, and fail, over and over, again and again! I am sick of it!"

Silence. I glared down at Cass. Her mouth was open, like she was trying to think of something to say, but nothing came out. She was speechless. I grumbled, moving out. "I'm out of here."

I stormed out of the room. Everyone watched as I stomped out of the cafe.

"Wait! Jae, come back!" She yelled. "Plea-"

Her voice was cut off by the closing of the glass door. I shook my head, ignoring her. Moving quickly down the street to the river, I heard her footsteps far behind me, trying all too hard to catch up with me.

"Get away from me!" I shouted behind my back, as I took a swift turn. I wanted to get away from it all. When she was off my tail, I finally paused to catch my breath. My legs were trembling from the sudden exertion, but I could feel them tugging me towards a certain direction. I exhaled and shook my head, knowing where I’d end up going again. I started trudging towards the river.

At the river, I kneeled at the banks and washed my face, cooling myself from the excitement and frustration. I moved back to the old tree. Resting my back against its huge trunk, I closed my eyes and exhaled, letting the light breeze blow over me.

I couldn't believe it. Max? How could she pick Max?! She's made some dumb choices before, but he takes the cake.

Five years. I've known her five years. In that five years she's probably had about fifty different boyfriends. Or maybe she had a few repeats, but I can't even count! I bet even she couldn't. It was just one boy after another, getting worse and worse and worse. I mean, she started out decently, but now this was all just craziness! What did she see in Max?! Wasn't he the same kid that bullied every other little wimp in school? Wasn’t dating him supposed to be some kind of nightmare?

I was getting really overworked by this. But I cared because she was my best friend. Because it was my job to protect her from harm. Because I didn't want to see her heartbroken all over again. Dang. Memories of seeing her cry at the foot of her staircase flowed into my consciousness. I had seen that scene too many times before.

Whenever I saw her cry, it was like an arrow straight through my heart. More than half the time, those tears could have been prevented. But whenever I would see her smile with the boy she was dating, it hurt even more because she was so happy with him and I couldn’t stop her.

But it never ends happy. Never.

I looked up at the green tree leaves, shading me from the late afternoon sun. It was an old tree, probably almost a century old. Huge boughs heavy with leaves stood strong against the light wind. I thought back to the reason why I always came back to this place.

 

"Gosh, it's so hot," I huffed, moving over to the shade of the tree. I pulled out my handkerchief and wiped myself.

“It’s pretty cool up here, you know.”

I looked up. Up there in the tree was Cassandra; red hair, rosy cheeks, blue eyes and all. "Hey, what are you doing up there?"

"Oh, nothing. Just watching you."

"What for?"

"Because I've got nothing better to do." She hopped down to the next branch. "Come up here. Now that I've caught your attention, I might as well talk to you." She moved a bit to the left so I could sit beside her.

"Oh. Okay. But how'd you get up there, anyway? That branch is so high up!" I asked as I tried to get a foothold.

"Okay, see that stone wall over there? It's got lots of bumps and edges. Makes everything an easy climb." She instructed.

"Why didn't I think of that before?" I climbed up the stone wall, and she asked me a few questions as I went up.

"So anyway, my name's Cassandra Jamerson. You?"

"Jae Park." Suddenly, I lost my foothold and slipped. I panicked and was able to catch unto a bump in the wall. My glasses fell off, and I was barely able to snag it before it hurtled to the ground. I tried to recover my breath from the sudden shock.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I murmured.

“Do you always wear glasses?”

“Yeah.”

“I think you look better without them.”

I blushed lightly. I could feel the hotness on my cheeks, so I hung my head down, pretending to search for a foothold until the color faded. I replied smiling, even if she couldn't see it. "Well, I think I’m more comfortable keeping them on."

“That’s too bad,” she comments. By this time, I had climbed up the tree, and was pretty close to the branch she was sitting on. "So… are you new here?"

"Quite…" she mumbled. "I just came here from Toronto."

I sat beside her and lay against the tree trunk, arching up my knee and resting my arm on it. "That's pretty far away. Why'd you move?"

"My parents. They get transferred all over the place." She looked me in the eye. "I never get to make any real friendships with anyone."

"Oh, that's too bad."

I couldn't believe I felt so much sympathy for this stranger. I couldn't even believe I came up here just to talk with her. Somehow that made me feel a little stupid. But then she smiled. And my doubts rolled out of my mind and memory.

"I'm hoping I could stay long enough to get a best friend here though."

I nodded, "I see. So… you never had any real friends?"

"Friends? Dozens. But I've never had anyone behind my back all the time. Somebody I could count on, someone who I could trust, someone who I could talk to. Haven't been lucky enough to come across someone like that yet, but seeing how decent the people around here are, I'm placing my bets."

And then we just talked. The conversation dribbled on, and we just kept going until we lost all track of time. Looking back, the topics in our conversation didn't seem so important. But I still remember everything. Because it was the first time I had ever spoken with her. I was so lost in our chat that I completely forgot that I had promised to play badminton that day. We talked to each other until I heard my friends looking for me. "Jae!"

Brian would kill me if we lost by default. "Uh, listen, I've got to go now. My friends are looking for me." I jumped down the next branch, hesitated, and looked back up at her. "Can I see you here again tomorrow?"

"Sure." She nodded. I was just about to make the next jump down, but then she said, "Ah, wait."

"What?" I held on to a branch for balance and twisted my head to see her.

"You know, Jae? I like you."

I almost let go of the branch, caught off guard. Cass fished something out of her pocket while I stood there, partially frozen so I wouldn’t fall. She handed me a silver chain bracelet. I looked up at her, slightly confused. She smiled and pushed my hand away from her. "Keep it. I keep on moving from town to town most of the time, so just in case I do again, you should keep it.” She grinned, tilting her head. “At least I can say I had a best friend, even for just a day.”

I smiled for half a second. I wanted to say something in reply. But I couldn't think of anything. Then the voice of Brian broke the silence, "Jae! Where the heck are you!?"

We looked down at him through the branches. He was just a few feet away from us, on the bridge. He was facing the other way, turning his head from side to side, searching for me. My eyes trailed back to Cassandra’s. "I better-"

She didn't let me finish. She just nodded with a smile, "Go."

I grinned and jumped out of the tree, swiftly swirling around to wave good bye. Then I shot my hand into the air, waving, and shouted at Brian, who eventually heard me.

"What are you doing there?" he bellowed from behind the railing of the bridge.

"Nothing," I answered.

"Nothing. Yeah, right. Come on! We need the MVP to teach the rookies how it’s done!"

"Coming!" I jolted and ran, skipping from one stone to another across the river. Brian turned and started darting back up the stairs and took a left, going to the park. When he wasn't looking, I turned my head and looked up at the tree. Then I faced forward and ran.

 

I stood up and walked back to the riverbank. I stared at my reflection in the waters. Truth was, I sort of had a crush on Cass back then, but it slowly wore off. I guess some things really are like that, they just disappear. I figured that she'd never like me, so I just threw any ideas out the window. Just forgot about it. Sad, I know. But I wasn't the kind of guy who would fall in love, anyway. I always thought it was just some hopeless mess people get themselves into. I mean, isn't it always like that?

And why would she like me anyway, right? I was pretty much a geek, not to mention I was part of the debate club. I tended to keep to myself, and I was a little weird. And I was sickly, and skinnier than other boys my age. Why would she fall for someone like me, of all people? Let's be practical, the odds aren't what you would call even. I felt like I was the furthest thing from her type. I don't find myself ideal, at least. And I wouldn't want to fall for anyone. Pfff. Please.

I looked at the bracelet she gave me, hanging from my wrist. With a sigh, I stood and walked along the river. I began to wonder if I should say sorry.

It was frustrating. I wanted to somehow teach her a lesson, get her to straighten up. I wondered if maybe I could get her to get her act together if I refused to apologize. But that also entailed not being friends again, and honestly, I’d sooner die than have that happen. And I knew that if someone was going to make the first move to make up, it would be me. I knew who Cassandra was. She was pretty filled with pride and never really ask to be forgiven. It was in my hands to act contrite, even if she was the one in the wrong.

Now, if I would apologize, or act like nothing happened, she would never learn anything. The thought of her getting with worse and worse crowds consumed me. And here I was again – helpless to help my best friend. I mumbled under my breath, "Crap."

My eyes lifted to the heavens, and I said in a tired, pleading voice, "I can't let her go on like this, can I?"

"No, you can't," I heard a familiar voice respond. My brows lifted and I turned to the direction of the sound.

"Hey, Brian." I greeted him.

"Hey, man. What is it this time?"

"Guess," I rolled my eyes, sitting down with my knees up.

"Cassandra has made another bad pick," he answered, reading my expression.

"Nailed it," I exhaled.

Brian was the type of person would go to school wearing his black shoes and jeans and a cool shirt with some weird statement on it, like, "Friendship: It is like PEEING IN YOUR PANTS. Everyone can see it, but only you can feel its TRUE WARMTH," or "common sense is an oxymoron." Inside, he was really nerdish, but outside, he let people think he was a pretty cool kid. Aside from Cass, Brian was my closest friend. Aside from them, I was pretty much a loner.

He chuckled, "When will you two ever grow up?"

"What’s that supposed to mean?" I glared at him.

He laughed, "I mean, seriously. Don't you know both of you are acting like such kids? Especially you, Jae."

"What do you mean by that?"

"What I meant was that you're making a big thing out of nothing at all. She can choose who she wants, and you can give her advice. But you can't stop a heart from loving."

"Where did you hear that mojo?" I said, fidgeting with my pocket and unwrapping the candy I took from it. He smiled, "My little sister has more influence on me than you think."

"Lemme guess. She went on that date with Izzy?" I asked, popping the candy into my mouth.

"You're so smart, you know that?" He said sarcastically.

"Yeah, I know," I played along. "In fact, yesterday, Mr. Kay asked me to check the facts in his report."

"Mr. Kay is the janitor… and that was the bathroom cleaning report."

"I don’t see why that shouldn’t count. " I exhaled, "Dude, what am I supposed to do with Cass?"

"Like I said, loosen up. What could that boy do to her?"

I moved the candy around in my mouth, crossing my arms. Then I threw it at him like a dart. "It's Max."

When he heard that he almost choked on the coke he was drinking, like what had happened to me. Bull's eye. He spat out, "Okay, okay. Now that's bad."

I glanced at him and then turned my gaze back to the river. "So, I have a reason to worry?"

"Bet your life on it," he coughed, still recovering from shock. "How does she get into these things?!"

"You're finally asking the right questions," I said with this amused smirk. "So what do we do?"

"What we ALWAYS do!" He exclaimed, spreading his arms out. I smiled. I really wanted to hear him say that. "When's the next time they're out?"

"From what I heard her jabbering about, probably tonight."

"At Little Red's?"

"You know that's where he takes all the girls before fooling around with them," I sighed. Brian shuddered, disgusted, "He’s a douchebag."

I gritted my teeth, shaking my head. “Now if only she thought the same.” 


	2. Spies

"Agent Chicken, come in. Come in, Agent Chicken," he clicked the walkie-talkie. I grunted and slapped the back of Brian's head, "Don't waste my batts! I'm right here!" I grunted, “Besides, it’s Agent Hawk.”

"Sorry!" He replied, rubbing where I had slammed him.

"Keep your mouth shut!" I commanded, "We're moving in…"

He smiled, swaying his head in a rhythmic motion, "Let's get this party started."

I grinned back and nodded, rushing out of the bushes and into the shelter of the shadows by the dining room window.

 

Location: Cassandra Jamerson's house

Time: 7:02 PM 

Date: October 4

Objective: Observe Villain and Defend Foxfire (a.k.a. Cassandra Jamerson) When Situation Demands

 

"Agent Fox, do you follow?" I whispered, looking back to see if Brian hadn't wondered off. He was right behind me.

"When do we attack, Agent Hawk?"

"When the time is right, comrade. For the moment, we lie in wait…" I answered, peering into the window. Cathy, Cass's older sis, was there watching her little sister. Cass was in a red dress with a skirt that ended right above the knee and a _low_ v-neck. She had black stockings on, and pumps that would kill. Her wrist was covered in silver bangles and her hair was tied up, her red perms with a feathery look. I growled. "Okay, it’s one thing to dress like that, and it’s another thing to dress like that _for Max._ ”

He took a look, smirked and whistled, "She looks like a killer!"

I glared at him. Then he remembered the point, "Right… sorry, blanked out there. Yeah, Max wouldn’t leave her alone in that."

 _Vroom_ _._ Car motor. Can't be wrong. I warned Brian, "Back!"

We moved deeper into the shade before Max could hear the rustling leaves. Brian then reported the information he gathered on his smartphone, "According to the tweets and Facebook posts I collected, our suspect is known for being wealthy, a bully, a reckless motor driver and some sort of junior womanizer who can’t keep his hands to himself."

I winced. That sounded bad. Of course, I always thought of him that way, but if the kids online said it too, you couldn’t chalk it up to _just_ my disgust with him. I looked back at Cass. When she turned around, I found that her dress was backless. I grunted, "Why is she like this?"

Brian laughed, "Well, if it’s to impress Max, she’s doing it right."

My eyebrow furrowed. “She doesn’t need to be wasting her time impressing jerks.” Then I looked back at Brian. "Keep an eye on the outside. I'll watch the inside."

He nodded once and brought out mini binoculars, ready to watch Mr. Hot-shot. I went through our equipment and pulled out a very sensitive microphone that I could attach to the glass of the window. I listened to her sister Cathy cheer, "Wow! You look gorgeous! Who's the lucky guy?"

Lucky guy my ass.

"Guess, Cath," Cass giggled, curling her perms even more in the mirror. Cathy sat down on the couch. "Clue."

Cass swirled around, "He's older than me."

Yeah, ‘cause he was pulled back a grade.

Cath looked pleased but a little surprised, "Dating up now, are we?"

I scoffed. If up meant _slightly_ better than unicellular microbial scum, sure.

"Yup! Now guess!" Cass squealed, jumping unto the couch, beside Cath. Cath thought a moment, "Okay, maybe it's…"

"He doesn't look like he'll be getting out of the car..." Brian whispered to me. The barbarian beeped his horn. Such a gentleman, I swear. Cass skipped up, "That's him!"

I rolled my eyes. How could her standards be so _low?_

Cass went out the front door and jumped into his red Maserati. He chuckled and kissed her cheek. A ripple of disgust went through me. Max got the convertible purring and casually placed his arm over her shoulders just before driving off like he was in a circuit race. I snapped my fingers and Brian and I tailed them with our skateboards.

I know I probably worry too much about Cass. But really, as her best friend, I don’t see how I would act any other way. As a best friend, I have to cheer her up, calm her down, give her advice, make her laugh, get her into joining things, get her out of trouble, and among others, protect her from harm. The only commitment of a best friend that's not working in our relationship. I started remembering the first time I was trying to protect Cass from the evils of the male population at our school.

 

It was the first day of classes after Cass and I had met. I hadn't seen Cassandra for a month since her family decided to have a vacation together somewhere in Italy. The moment I came through the door, I spotted long waves of red hair that could only be Cass’. She was making friends with two girls. I approached her and noticed small bumps showing like an irregular mountain range on her back. As I came closer, I smiled crookedly. I figured she had just started wearing it. I didn't say anything, of course. I just stood behind her, and when the girls took notice of me, I winked and brought a finger to my lips.

They smiled and played it cool, continuing to talk with her. I leaned in, bringing my mouth behind her ear. “I hope Europe didn’t make you forget me.”

Cass spun around and grinned, "Jaesie!"

I rolled my eyes, exasperated. "Don't call me that. You can forget my name if you’re just going to butcher it like that."

She giggled and looked down into a shopping bag she was carrying, beginning to dig for something. “As if I could forget you, silly.”

She pulled out a little Leaning Tower of Pisa and shoved it into my chest cheerfully. A smile crept unto my face when I held it. "Now I'm feeling guilty I didn't bring you anything from badminton camp."

"You brought back stories, didn’t you? That’s all I need," she answered, grabbing my wrist and pulling me down the hall. "Start introducing me."

The whole day I tried to stick with her, only leaving her alone if she needed to go to the bathroom. I made sure I sat right behind her in all our classes, too, and if I couldn't, then it could only be a girl behind her. When I walked with her, I made sure I was at her right side, just one step behind her. Why? Because it was basically tradition in my school for the boys to pull all sorts of tricks on girls as they went through puberty. I had seen them harass helpless girls with new bras. I wasn’t sure if harass was too strong a word, but it comes close enough. I didn't want Cass to suffer through that. Besides, I wanted to give Cass a fresh new start. Once, while we were lined up alphabetically and I had to be torn away from Cass, a guy _almost_ tried, but I glared him down before he could even touch her. When she looked over her shoulder and spotted me looking in her direction, she smiled and waved. All I did was smile back.

There was also this more daring kid who attempted it in my presence. Come to think of it, now that my memory is getting jogged up, it was Max. My anger flared at the reminder.

Cass was looking at the announcements on the bulletin board, checking what clubs she could join. Max, surrounded by his posse, reached out, but I grabbed his wrist as swift as a snake. The adrenalin took over and I spun him around, making him face the same direction I was facing. With one hand over his mouth and the other grabbing his underwear, I yanked. His scream was muffled by my hand. All that happened before Max even knew what hit him. That was the first time and the last time I ever gave anyone a wedgie. I threw him back to his group and crossed my arms. I mouthed, "Never touch her."

At that instant, the bell rang and I was saved from possibly being beaten to a pulp. The flow of the student body making their way to their classrooms carried Max and his clique away from us. Cass, blissfully unaware, looked up from the bulletin board, “Jae, would you teach me guitar if I signed up for the music club?”

“Yeah, sure.”

They never dared to do anything like that ever again, not to a single girl at school. One day, all the strap tugging was gone. Nowhere in the entire school. Not even once.

Cass never noticed, Cass never knew. And I preferred to keep it that way. After that, I thought I would never have to worry about anyone bothering Cass ever again. But then high school happened and I had to reevaluate everything.

 

"Li'l Red's," I quietly announced when we arrived, sneaking behind the dumpsters where no one could see us. Brian nodded and started taking off his black jacket, revealing his yellow shirt that had "Wake Up" spelled on it. He brought out a can of temporary hair color spray that could change his black hair into blue punk hair. Then he put on a pair of absurd tortoise rim glasses. I passed him a red plaid necktie. He was unrecognizable, so the disguise was perfect. No one dressed like that when entering Li'l Red's (or anywhere, for that matter), 'cause basically Li’l Red’s was a club (yes, Max was bringing a minor into a club).

The necktie I passed him had a small camera on the knot, and it could transmit the images to my computer. Maybe spying on Cass like this was overboard, but at least we could be badass while doing it.

When Brian entered with the fake ID I got him (less questions, more reading), I saw the smoky, noisy, badly lit but neon world of who knows what. Brian ordered a coke and picked a table with a good angle of our star couple. Then he spoke through the mic sitting inobviously on his collar, "They're talking."

The device implanted in his ear carried my reply, "Tell me what they’re talking about."

He whispered back, "Guess."

"… Warriors versus Cavs?"

"Good guess, but they’re talking about cube watermelons," he supplied, taking a sip.

"Why the heck are they talking about that?!"

"I’m watching, not theorizing, Jae," Brian answered sarcastically.

"Get closer," I commanded.

"That's dangerous," he replied, gulping down his coke.

I smirked. "I thought you were in this for the danger?"

"I have a need for excitement, not a death wish.”

“Fine. Just keep an eye on them."

An hour later, Cass was getting a little woozy, and Max was getting a little pushy. I commanded again, "Brian, get closer!"

"Fine," he replied, standing up. He picked a magazine from the rack and sat on the ugly couch on the side, pretending to read. By the minute, the situation seemed to be getting worse and worse. How? Max kept on getting even more annoyingly disgusting. When I saw him place his hand on her thigh, with his fingers sliding upward, I spat, "Cut the date short, Plan 14."

He whispered, "How did that go again… wait… do I act like a disruptive idiot who scares everyone out or-"

"Yup," I answered curtly.

"Hmm." He was obviously ticked off.

"Hey, it was your idea when we were still making this stuff up,” I reminded him. He scoffed and pulled out his iPod and searched it for the strongest metal music he had. “You’re buying me the One Piece DVD set after this, right?”

“Yessir.”

Brian went to the speakers, unplugged it from playing blaring EDM, and started playing the most hard core rock I've ever heard. I reached for the volume dial and spun it down before I could go deaf. Brian jumped on someone else's table, kicking off their food and drinks. Everyone was screaming and yelling at him, completely pissed off. He danced the nerdiest math-incorporated dance I ever imagined existed, and sang _She’s Gone_ like a shot turkey (and it wasn’t even the song that was playing). He skipped away like some drunk ballerina and announced to the entire room, "I'm absolutely fabulous!"

Everyone in the room was raving mad, especially the hot-headed Max. Cass was still very drunk and sleepy, too much to even get what was going on. Max stood up and started pouncing at Brian, launching punch after punch after punch and still missing, 'cause Brian was dancing like crazy. I snuck in while all the people surrounded the two, chanting, "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

I grabbed the half-asleep Cass, putting her arm over my shoulders so I could carry her out. I whispered into my mic, "I got her. Knock him out cold and go."

Brian suddenly got serious. I saw through the window how his whack expression suddenly turned dead serious the moment I uttered the words to him through the mic. He had an amazingly cool smirk on his face, and Max knew that that totally meant, " _Now_ game on."

Max looked completely stupefied by that. Brian chuckled, "'Night, fella."

He threw him a punch right across the face and double kicked him so hard Max fell down on the ground, asleep for the night. The entire crowd gasped at the sudden turn of events. He smiled at them and bowed, "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen."

And he somersaulted out the door. Then he started running madly, "They'll come after us!"

I nodded but hissed to him, "At least help me get out of here with what we came for!!!"

He picked up Cass’ other arm, and we ran like wild ducks being gunned down.

 

"How hard could it be?"

"Oh, not hard at all!" I growled sarcastically, pushing an unconscious Cass up the roof. That was the deal, he distracted, I did everything else. I needed to rethink how evenly we split up the workload.

"Yeah, absolute piece of cake," I muttered, pulling her up to the window, and laying her down beside the window sill. While she rested, I pulled up the window and carefully stepped in. I felt for her in the darkness and dragged her in with as much care as I could so as not to wake her up. I lay her down on her bed, tucking her under the covers. I sighed, looking at her peaceful face, "You have no idea what trouble I go through for you." My hand gracefully traced her cheeks and swept her red hair to the side. I smiled, "But it's all worth it."

I rubbed her soft cheek and saw her smile in her sleep. Satisfied, I stood up, ready to leave for the night. Then I heard her whisper, "Good night, Jae."

I turned around swiftly, "You're awake!?"

She giggled tiredly.

I groaned, “Wow, couldn’t you just have walked up the stairs or something?”

She rolled around in her bed, still giggling. “No, because I knew you’d bring me up here.”

I shook my head at her, but smiled. With her back still turned to me, she said, “I saw everything, by the way. Even though you totally ruined my date–" she rolled back to face me, hugging her blankets to her chest, and I chuckled, stepping closer, “–I'm still happy that you put on a great show and saved the princess."

"Yeah, but now it's getting late and Mom will scream her head off if I'm not home in a few minutes," I replied.

"Oh, my knight in shining armor, he can't save himself, can he?" She lay on her back, closing her eyes.

I shook my head at her, smiling. I knew we'd be all alright again. "Night, princess."

She yawned, “Night night, Jae.”

I crawled out and slid down the roof and ambled down one of the posts. Brian was at the bottom, smiling, tapping on his earpiece. "I heard everything."

“If you say another word, you can kiss your One Piece DVD set goodbye.”

“Did you hear something? I didn’t hear anything.”

I grinned and the two of us skateboarded back home.


	3. Between Mops and Brooms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Youth Tour has ended. You did great, boys. :)
> 
> #DAY6  
> #데이식스  
> #DAY6_Youth  
> #DAY6WORLDTOUR  
> #Youth_Encore

The next day, I woke up but was still half-asleep. I stretched and plopped back down and thought about last night. Cass would be blind to still stick with Max after last night. Maybe she'd do the smart thing and stop dating him completely.

Max had a favorite person to torment. His name was Sandy. Sandy would constantly be picked on for no other reason than his name. Max was always getting Sandy to do homework or run errands for him. He was sort of like Max’s personal assistant and gofer at this point. By mere exposure, Sandy knew Max’s secrets, fears, and weaknesses. Sandy even learned to care for Max – which throws a wrench into my whole logical assessment of the situation. Sandy has become something like Max's best friend. Even if Max probably doesn’t even realize that, or thinks differently. That was pretty sad.

Suddenly my phone pinged.

Sandy:  _Hi! Boss knows it was you and Brian last night. He would just like you to know that it isn’t over. Have a good morning. :)_

I groaned and texted back.

_Wonderful news, Sandy. Just what I needed to start my morning._

My phone pinged again.

_No problem, just doing my job._

Ugh. I texted Brian and told him to get ready for anything today.

 

I rode on the school bus in between Brian and Cass. I turned to Cass. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Okay, what?"

"Will you still date Max?"

"Yeah."

"WHAT!?!?" I yelled, almost making her deaf. She shook her head, getting rid of the ringing in her ear. "Why not?"

"'Why not,' she says. Why not?! Are you serious!? Didn't you see what he was trying to do last night!?" I ranted.

"Here we go again," Brian muttered, sinking into his seat, so he would be nowhere in the conversation. She rolled her eyes at him, then she looked at me, "And tell me honestly Jae, why would you care?"

"Excuse me? I'm supposed to care!"

I sighed in exasperation because the bus was so noisy that this scene looked so idiotic. This was a serious conversation and a group of junkies behind us were reenacting a Tiktok meme. I looked her in the eye. "Listen, Cass, I'm your best friend. And I'd always be here for you. And I have responsibilities to you. I’m a friend, a brother–"

"A lover?" She whispered.

"What?" What the hell was she muttering about?

She glared at me, "Bet you want to be. I guess you're just jealous of all the guys I date, 'cause I go out with them and not you."

"Jealous?" I looked at her in partial disgust. She turned a little red, "Yes, jealous."

I scoffed, just as the bus stopped, repeating it another damn time, "Jealous."

I said nothing more. I stood up, leaving her there. I headed into the school, muttering, “I can’t believe her. She knows my stance on this. Why do I even put up with this?"

"Because you love her," I heard Brian say, a few steps behind me. I turned to him and put up an eye brow, "I beg your pardon?"

He just looked at me and then rolled his eyes, "Nothing."

 

It was lunch and I was pondering over where I should sit. Usually I would sit with Cass and Brian, but I was still a bit pissed from earlier.

It’s a little complicated, but being accused of being jealous really rubbed me the wrong way. I was not jealous. I was not needy. I was not interested in romance.

Love was complex. I understood that loving was a risk – and if I was going to do it, I had to be prepared for potential heartbreak, and the headache of making sure it doesn’t reach that point. When it came down to it, maybe I did believe in true love – but I was also aware of the human race’s infinite capacity to screw up. People make mistakes. People get tired. People get hurt. And scariest of all – love changed you. And I was scared of what love could make me capable of. I was scared of crossing lines, and terrified to lose myself.

I wasn’t ready and I didn’t want to be ready. The thought of physical connection didn’t set me aflame, and I was secure enough in my familial and friendly relationships to be content with the emotional connections that I did have. I was far from marriageable age, and I enjoyed my independence and my capacity to focus on whatever I wanted to focus on. And I respected myself and others too much to experiment for the sake of satisfying curiosity – which I didn’t have in the first place. The last thing I wanted was to deal with drama. There was no incentive to motivate me to do otherwise. I preferred to keep things simple. Peaceful. Rational. Predictable. Without any unforeseen factors deterring me from my goals.

I don’t know exactly when I started believing this. Maybe when my aunt and uncle divorced. Maybe when I could hardly recognize my cousin after he adopted all his fiancée’s viewpoints. Maybe when my old math tutor became pregnant and had to quit college. Maybe when one of the seniors on the badminton team threw someone into a coma after getting into a bloody brawl with an opponent who had kissed his girlfriend. Maybe – something I could never admit to her face – it was every time I saw Cass give herself away.

And so I was pretty stalwart about it. I would not date. Not until I was ready. Not until I was certain that I could handle love. Not until I was certain I could handle who I was in the face of love. Maybe that made me cold and distant… but at least I knew myself and did what I thought I should do.

Being accused of jealousy made me feel like I had broken my code. And it made me feel like my intentions were driven by selfishness. And it hurt because it came from someone who I was expecting to understand.

 _It’s not like that._  I narrowed my eyes, concentrating on the bubbles in my soup as I carried my tray and tried to figure out where I should sit.  _It wasn’t like that._

I scanned the whole cafeteria. It was then that I noticed that everyone was staring at me. Confused, I asked, "What?"

"What what?" Came a powerful voice that hovered above me. I grinned. Ah. Him. I was too pissed to deal with this right now. I turned around, "Hey Max!" My face turned dead serious. "What do you want?"

“What kind of pathetic joke do you think you were trying to pull last night?”

“Look, Max, you can screw yourself over for all I care–” I breathed. At the end of the day, I couldn’t stop caring even if I was mad at her, “–but if you cross a line with my friends you can’t expect me to stand by the sidelines.”

He growled. “She’s mine, Park. And I can do with her whatever I damn well please.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You don’t own her, jackass.”

"Say that again and I’ll pummel you to the ground,” he sneered. I placed my tray on some unknown kid's table and taunted, "Can you even spell pummel?"

"Yeah, and I’ll have it written in between your eyes.” And he launched his attack. I ducked and felt his hand brush over my hair. He growled and was about to pound down both fists into my back, but I rolled away. Max's anger kept on building up as he made his moves…. and I made him miss. I knew that cafeteria fights have a tendency to turn into food fights, so the hell with it. He was charging at me and I picked up some boy's hotdog (complete with bun, ketchup and mayo), took what I hoped to be good aim, and catapulted the weiner into his face. It hit his chest. Fair enough. The cheering died. Max stared down at his (poor, poor me) fave shirt, growled like a dog and glared at me with a fire in his eyes that spelled out, "You die today, Park."

Off went my feet, running like wild through the cafeteria. Jumping on tables and throwing up food, I was hoping some chili would find its way to the raging bull's eye. "Okay, Brian! I think you know I need your help right now!!!"

I heard someone grunt, like as if he were being forced into cleaning the toilet. Next thing I knew, there was some colossal collision that happened right behind my back. I stopped. When I turned around, I smiled. Sure enough, Brian had his knee up into Max's stomach. Max, stunned, fell to the ground, knocked down for the time being. He went down squealing like a pig.

And the crowd goes wild!!! They picked me and Brian up, throwing us in the air. "Woohoo!"

We did to Max what everyone in the school had been aching to do to him since day one. We rejoiced, they rejoiced. While we were all cheering, someone suddenly grabbed me by the collar. "Get down from there, Jae."

The crowd dropped us down on the floor and gave the girl space. Cass had her hands crossed and a furious look on her face. Crap. I smiled sheepishly, scratching the back of my head, "Hi, Cass. We… tried to play nice. Teehee."

She glared at me, and grabbed my ear in one swift movement. She tugged me to her, _hard_. "Come with me."

“Ow, ow, ow,” I winced. “What about Brian? He was in this too.”

“Don’t be smart with me Jae, you dragged him into it.”

Brian nodded. “I’m totally innocent.”

I rolled my eyes. Cass yanked harder and pulled me out of the dining hall.

 

It was just me and Cass in the cramped janitor’s closet. Honestly, I had no idea what business we had being in here, but I guessed I must have really pissed her off if she wanted to discuss something in private like this. With her arms crossed, her brows meeting and a frown on her face, she asked, "What do you think you’re doing?"

“That’s… rhetorical, right?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I hate you so much right now.”

I frowned. But then Cass continued. “But… I can’t deny that I’m a little flattered.”

"What?" I asked, confused. She stepped closer, "I’m not really one to support violence, but I know you wouldn’t venture to do something like that on a regular day. But you stepped in to stand up for me.” She smiled. “And maybe you looked pretty cool while doing it, too.”

I smirked and shrugged. She giggled and hugged me, "Thanks for always being there, Jae."

I hugged her back. "Please tell me this means you’ll stop going out with Max.”

"Yeah," she said, pulling away just enough to see my face. Oh YEAH!!! Then she continued, shrugging. "But I'm thinking of going out with Kirk. He seems much stronger than Max apparently is."

"Good Lord, Cass, when are you going to quit?!" I jerked back in indignation and fell against the wall. She still had her arms around me, and was pulled to lean on me. We ended up chest to chest, our faces only inches apart. Suddenly I became hyper aware of the softness of her form pressing against me. My arms felt frozen around her. I could hear her breath and feel its warmth on the crest of my collarbone. My chest tightened. My mind raced. We had hugged a million times before. Hell, we had even hugged in bathing suits after winning a game of beach volleyball together. But this felt like alien territory.

It was like grinding against rust, but my arms dropped to my sides, just as Cass seemed to lean further in. She paused, her lips just a breath apart from mine, then pressed her head against my chest. I felt her fingers on my back curl into my shirt. Did she just try to…?

She drew out a long breath. She stepped back and half-smiled. “Probably never.” She opened the door and left. “See you.”

The pounding in my chest faded just as her footsteps did.

 

“Hey, you okay, man?” Brian asked, putting down the console. “You haven’t said anything since I came over.”

I breathed and continued to twirl my badminton racket between my fingers as I lay in my bed. I didn’t even know how to talk about it.

“Is this about Cass?”

I shrugged.

“Where did you two go earlier?”

"Janitor's closet." The reply was flat, as if it were meaningless. Confusion was written all over Brian’s face. "What? Why?"

"She was mad at first, but then she smiled and told me, 'You stood up for me, and you were pretty cool while you were at it.’” I was still staring blankly up at the ceiling, imitating her voice.

Brian shook his head. “Why do you get all the credit? I was the one doing all the action back there.”

I smirked. “I thought you were pleading innocence for this one.”

“Well… I’m recanting my statement.”

I chuckled. Brian went on, "Anyway, assuming you’re not just inflating your own ego, what happened next?” I looked at him, then looked back at the ceiling, continuing to twirl the badminton racket. After a minute of silence, his expression returned to that of utter shock. “Did you two kiss?!”

I grabbed a nearby pillow and threw it at him. “God, no!” Then I dropped my arms unto the bed. “I’m… actually not entirely sure what happened.” I mumbled, "Maybe I'm growing up."

"I… don’t follow," Brian looked at me, lost.

I changed the direction of the conversation. “Cass was being weird.”

“How’s that?”

“One moment she was talking about dating Kirk–”

“Anything’s an upgrade from Max.”

“–and then the next moment she’s…” God, I couldn’t even say it. My eyebrows met. The options were sobering.

“Spit it out, Jae!”

I sat up. “Brian, we’ve got to get her to stop. And I don’t mean to quit one boyfriend. No, I mean to stop this entire cycle she’s been spiraling down.”

“Well, yeah, of course that’s what we’d hope for–”

“No, I mean it!” I interrupted. “This has to end.”

“A-Alright, man, I see your point. I’ll help you.”

I nodded. It was impossible for Cass to have legitimate feelings for me. If she really had tried to kiss me earlier, the only reason for that would be that she had reached the point where she was willing to be with anyone with a Y chromosome. And that scared me.

But the piercing feeling in my chest that I felt for a moment in that tight little room scared me more. 


	4. Desperate Measures

After last night’s events, I hardly got a wink of sleep. Brian and I had stayed together a couple more hours to try and come up with a way to get Cass to ease up on dating guy after guy, but we couldn’t think of anything that seemed like it would work.

I didn’t even realize I had fallen asleep. I only realized I had fallen asleep when I groggily reached for my ringing phone.

“Morning, Jae!”

“… Wonpil?” I checked the clock on my bedside drawer. “Dude, it’s 6:15.”

“I know, I know, sorry about that. I was just too excited. You’re still doing the photoshoot later, right?”

“The wha–” I paused, remembering. “Oh crap, is that today?”

Wonpil was a friend of mine who was in photography club. He had been bugging me for ages to model for their club, telling me not to waste my height and my proportions. Personally, I wasn’t very fond of taking pictures of myself, and I was still a little self-conscious when others took photos of me. But Wonpil had been so persistent that I had finally given in.

“Yeah! Go to the club room right after class. And don’t be late! We still have to style you.”

I groaned. “Alright, alright, I’ll be there.”

“You’re the best, Jae!”

“Of course I am. See you in school.”

“See you!”

 

When I got into the school bus that day, Cass was sitting with some of her other friends. That was normal. Sometimes she sat with Brian and me, sometimes she sat with the other girls. During lunch, she ate with her other friends as well. I was relieved. Honestly, after yesterday, I wasn’t sure how to interact with her.

I went straight to the photography club room after class, just like Wonpil asked me to. When I opened the door, Wonpil greeted me, “Jae! You’re finally here!” He skipped towards me with a pile of clothes in his arms. “Put these on.”

I went to a corner where they had a makeshift dressing room set up. I traded my oversized red sweater and sneakers away for dark wash jeans, a cobalt blue button down, and brown suede Chelsea boots. Once I was dressed, Wonpil handed over a pair of amber contacts. “Take off your glasses and put these on.”

I shook my head. “No way, the glasses stay on.”

I didn’t really like how I looked without my glasses. My eyes were pitifully small, and the crooked bridge of my nose was more obvious. I felt a little naked without them.

Wonpil pouted. “Come onnn, these are even calibrated to your eye grade.”

I grunted. This really meant a lot to Wonpil. I grabbed the lenses from him. “God, alright, I’ll do it. Quit pouting like that.”

He grinned sunnily. “Yaaay!”

After I had put on the contacts, they directed me to a chair and draped a hairdressing cape around me. One of Wonpil’s clubmates started styling my hair, wetting it before massaging mousse and creams into it. Then she started spraying it. I coughed. “What is that? It smells like a builder’s worksite.”

“Hair coloring spray,” she said, shaking the bottle. “Now hold still.”

My eyes grew huge. “You’re coloring my hair?!”

“Shhh, it’s temporary. It’ll wash out.”

After my hair was done, they proceeded with make up. Then they gave me a huge mood stone necklace that matched my shirt, several thick band silver rings, and clip-on silver hoop earrings.

“Alright,” Wonpil declared, taking off the hairdressing cape. “You’re ready.”

He pulled me to the body length mirror on the wall. I almost jumped back when I saw the image. “Holy crap.”

My blond hair had turned wine colored, with blond accents. My collarbones peeked through my half-buttoned shirt. The fabric of the shirt teased the form of my slender frame. My eyes were striking. I looked like I smelled expensive.

I waved in the mirror, hardly believing the reflection was mine. I muttered, “It’s almost like I’m a different person.”

Wonpil and his clubmates high fived each other. He elbowed my ribs. “You sure could break some hearts dressed like that.”

I scoffed and made a face at him.

Then an idea hit me.

 

After the photoshoot, I approached Wonpil and asked, “Yo, how much for all the clothes?”

Wonpil blinked, a little surprised. “You can keep them. My dad used to wear them in the 80’s. Nobody uses them anymore.”

“And the jewelry? The contacts?”

Wonpil shrugged. “Honestly, we were thinking of letting you keep those as a thank you for helping us out with the photoshoot. I mean, the contacts _are_ calibrated to your eye grade, after all.”

I smiled. “Wow. Thanks, man.”

Wonpil extended his arms to hug me, “Sure!”

I grabbed his shoulder, preventing him from coming closer. “Okay, no need for hugs from you. What about all the products you used on me?”

Wonpil’s classmate shrugged. “If you do more photoshoots with us, we’ll let you keep them too.”

I smirked. “Alright. Fair deal.”

We shook on it. Wonpil mused, “You must really like how you look today.”

I shrugged, then picked up my things. “I should head back now. Thanks again for everything, guys!”

“We should be thanking you!” Wonpil said.

I grinned. “I’ll see you guys at the next session.”

I exited, my mind already buzzing. It was a long shot, but worth at least trying.

It was inevitable – Cass would keep on dating. So, let her date – until she encounters someone who gets her to stop. Someone who finally gets her to learn her lesson, and gets her to give up wasting time with bad boys.

So where was I going to get someone like that?

It would be me.

In disguise.

It was crazy, and probably not the most ethical thing in the world. But desperate times call for desperate measures. If I could just get Cass to see that bad boys were only bad news, then she would finally, _finally_ pull herself together. If her heart had to be smashed to smithereens in order to get that to happen, then so be it. And even though it hurt me to hurt her, it was for the best.

Cass knows that I dress nothing like this, and the last time she had seen me without glasses was the day we met. If I could keep up the act and change my voice, maybe I stood a chance to carry out my plan.

So let’s find out.

 

I ran up to my room to drop off my things at home. While I was putting the new products I got from the photography club on my desk, my eyes focused on my picture with Cassandra, framed and standing near my box of watches. The two of us were seated beside each other on a park bench. I had my hands together and my eyes closed, as if in prayer. Her eyes were also closed, and she had her finger on her lips, as if guarding a secret. Both of our heads were leaning against each other, and we had big, soft smiles on our faces.

I stared at the picture for a moment.

I’m really sorry. But this is for your own good.

I grabbed my wallet and hurried out the door.

 

I went to the café where we usually hangout after class, still dressed like I had been at the photoshoot. Sure enough, Cass was there with two other girls. We made eye contact the moment I stepped in. I smirked faintly and walked to the counter to order a drink, feeling her gaze trail after me. It was the same barista it always was. If she didn’t recognize me, then that was a sign that the disguise was working.

I leaned on the counter as I ordered, using my best imitation of a British accent. “One espresso, please.”

It was a drink I never ordered. Generally, coffee made me jittery. I usually went for chamomile blueberry tea whenever I was here. But I was still trying to figure out how to appear as different from the real Jae as possible.

The barista nodded, punching in my order into the cashier. I smiled. It seems she hadn’t caught on. I turned to go, then stopped myself. I faced the barista again and said, sliding a bill toward her, “Actually, could you also send a caramel macchiato to the redhead at that table?” I said tilting my head in Cass’ direction. She raised her eyebrows and nodded.

“Thanks.” I took a seat near the window.

I brought out a notebook and started scribbling into it, to make it seem like I had something to do. But I was also doing it to get rid of my nerves. Internally, I was screaming.

_I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m doing this._

Soon I had a page filled. The barista served Cass her drink before she gave me mine. Cass seemed pleasantly surprised, and she eyed me from across the room. I grinned and continued to write in my notebook. I watched the three girls huddle together excitedly. As the barista passed by them on the way to bring me my drink, they stopped her and handed her something. She approached me and served my drink, then slipped me a note. My heart was racing. I opened the note, and it was Cass’ cell number.

Holy crap. She really didn’t recognize me. My hands began to sweat. I couldn’t believe this was actually working. Then I gulped behind the note. _How was I supposed to text her?_

I peeked over the note and noticed her watching me. I winked and pocketed the note. I drank my espresso like a shot and headed out, slowly at first, but then into a full dash once I was far enough away.

Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy crap.

I ran into the nearest mobile shop and ordered for a SIM card. I installed it into my phone and texted her.

_How was the macchiato?_

She replied in a minute.

_Smooth, like yourself._

My eyeballs almost popped out. I had never done anything like this before. I had no idea what to do in this kind of situation. Charming, charming, be charming.

_It was also free. Like yourself tonight, maybe?_

I ran some calculations in my head. If I practiced reciting history dates in the shower tomorrow and did calculus in the bus to school, then yes, I would have enough time to go on a date tonight.

_That depends. Time and place?_

I ran my fingers over my lips, thinking of a reply. _If_ regular Jae would go on a first date, it would be something really casual and manageable, budget-wise. But I’m not regular Jae. I am a man on a mission.

_I’m new in town. I read about Battisti. Explore it with me? 8pm._

Battisti was the local hipster area. There were loads of themed restaurants, street artists, and specialty stores lining its streets. I hadn’t really gone through it properly myself, so I didn’t know what exactly to expect. But it should be fun.

_I’ll get dressed._

_I’ll meet you at the fountain._

I finally looked up from my phone and exhaled. My heart seemed to gallop like a racehorse. This was ridiculous.

I just got a date with my best friend and she didn't even know it was me. And the girl moved fast! Scary fast. She didn't even ask for my name. Everything felt like a whirlwind.

Did I even understand what I was getting myself into?


	5. First Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #SoCool

After spending most of the time before the date giving myself a long pep talk in the bathroom, I finally left home to head to Battisti. When I got there, she was standing by the fountain, her back to me. I stopped by one of the buildings before approaching her. I fished out my phone and called her, remembering to speak with my British accent. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Is that you in the pretty red dress?”

I saw her bite her lip, smiling. She faced left and right. “Where are you?”

I walked up behind her and whispered in her ear. “How you doing, baby?”

I almost choked. I can’t believe that came out of my mouth. She spun around and giggled. I grinned. “You look nice.” I meant it.

She scrunched her nose. “Just something I threw together.” She adjusted the chain of her shoulder bag. "Hey, I never really got your name."

“It’s Sungjin,” I said, giving the name I had decided to stick with while I was doing this. I fished out the note she gave me. “And this little note told me you were Cass.”

She nodded. “Are you from London?”

No way was I going to say yes to that. I wouldn’t want her to ask me about a place I hardly knew anything about. “South Korea. But I grew up in a small town in the UK.”

“My best friend’s a Korean. But he grew up here.” Her smile grew bigger. “He sort of looks like you, actually.”

I almost broke a sweat. I laughed it off. “Yes, well, with the eyes and everything it must be hard to tell the differences when you’re not used to them.”

She nodded, chuckling. She didn’t know many Koreans apart from Brian, Wonpil and me. “I guess you’re right there.”

I never thought I would be thankful for how some Westerners had a hard time telling Asian people apart.

“So what brings you here?” she asked. “It’s not a big city.”

“I’m an exchange student at the university.” I shrugged. “I was getting tired of being in the library all day.” I smirked at her. “So I went out to look for someone who could show me the city.”

She smiled through pursed lips. “You asked the right person.”

I offered her my arm. “Lead the way.”

She immediately hugged my arm. “Sorry,” she excused herself. “I’m feeling a bit cold.”

Suddenly it was like the night grew warmer. “No problem.”

We walked around and talked, passing the antique bookstores and exotic thrift shops. As much as possible, I tried to divert attention away from myself. I didn’t want to touch on personal history if I could help it. If I spoke, it was to give some trivia or an opinion that I had. We pointed out things in the windows or in the streets, and I kept asking her questions and cracking jokes. All I had to do was to keep her interested. Honestly… that part wasn’t hard.

I knew her. I knew what she liked. I knew what would spark her curiosity. I knew what would make her laugh. I just had to keep making her smile. Frankly, there was hardly a thing I enjoyed doing more.

The whole time, Cass kept locked around my arm. I felt her sway in laughter and jolt up straight in surprise. And during the quieter moments, she leaned close against me, shielding herself from the cold. I wasn’t sure if she was just saying that she was cold so she could hold on like this, but I was _very_ aware of her presence because of it. My mind raced. She was good at this. She was doing everything right to be irresistible – and I could tell because if I didn’t have my wits about me, it would be working. I knew her, but this was a side of her that I had never seen before. I was still processing it. I began to understand a little better why it was so easy for her to find a guy.

After going around the area rating the restaurants from zero to Dinner at Cassandra’s Grandmother’s House, we strolled into a spy-themed restaurant where diners solved a mission while eating. After going on a scavenger hunt – and Cass was apparently crazy good at answering riddles, whereas I _might’ve_ accidentally broken some equipment – we sat down to a hearty meal of salmon and ribs while solving table top puzzles. We were competing with each other and bantering so much that it took us forever to eat everything. We had to help each other finish what we had, and there was a lot of reaching over the table and jabbing at meat long distance. At the end of it, I covered for dinner, silently hoping that my crazy plan wouldn’t end up sucking up my life savings.

We needed to walk off the meal, so we made our way to the park.

“How was dinner?” I asked.

“I’d rate it Not Quite As Good As Cassandra’s Grandmother’s Cooking, but it gets extra points because the manager didn’t kick you out when you broke the suitcase.”

“Yes, well, a good spy must have a way of making things work even when they don’t want to cooperate.”

She laughed. Then she pointed out a Vietnamese restaurant. “What do you think of this place?”

“The lobster must be fantastic,” I mused, looking at the giant poster outside. Honest to goodness, even if I was stuffed, it was still making my mouth water.

“I think it’s Second Date Worthy,” she said. I stared at her, caught a little off guard. She looked back, smiling. I think I might’ve blushed.

“Yeah,” I said, regaining composure. “It’s got tomorrow at 7pm vibes coming from it, too.”

The sooner we can wrap this up, the better. Besides, there’s nothing quite like a whirlwind romance. She grinned, pleasantly surprised that I wanted to see her again so soon. She nodded, her hand tracing down my arm. She held my hand. “That sounds about right.”

At that moment we arrived at the park. The moon was right above us, lighting our path. A small late night crowd watched a string quartet playing in a gazebo, and the night was alive with the sounds of crickets. All the flowers were blooming, and fireflies were scattered all over the place. I shook my head slightly, not enough for her to notice. Everything tonight was going perfectly. Too perfectly. Too close for comfort.

We walked through the trees on a little dirt path that took us to a small playground. There was a swing there and Cass sat on it. And of course, she asked me to push her. She was enjoying herself a lot. I could tell.

Her hair was being blown in the soft wind, and she kept on smiling and giggling and laughing the whole time. Sometime in the middle of the date, the cat and mouse of it all disappeared. I realized I was acting less and just letting things flow naturally. And I could sense that she was less concerned with appearing like a desirable enigma, and that she was acting a lot more like the Cass that I knew. My eyebrows furrowed. Was this the direction I wanted this to go in?

While I was thinking to myself, a cat walked by. Cass jumped off the swing, and followed the cat into the bushes. There were a bunch of kittens under the branches, biting each other’s ears playfully.

"They're so cute!" Cassandra whispered, squatting down near them. "I wish I could hold one."

I watched her. Her face was aglow, watching the kittens and their adorable antics. I sighed. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t be hard on her even if I wanted to be. "Well, let’s see if we can.”

I came over and picked up one of the kittens, who willingly cooperated. I handed it to her. She scooped it up and cuddled it close to her. "Sungjin, it’s adorable!”

I grinned. Another kitten walked over to me and rubbed against my leg, purring. “Sungjin, it likes you!”

“So it does,” I chuckled.

“Why don’t you pick it up?”

I shook my head. “Nah. Animal fur in general is bad for my allergies.”

“Your allergies?” she echoed.

Oh crap. That was something too Jae-like.

“Uh, yeah. Suddenly developed it while I was here. Didn’t seem to bother me too much when I was in the UK.”

She nodded. “I see.” She put the kitten down. We were quiet for a while, just watching the kittens play. I could hear the soft music of the musicians in the background.

I stood up, offering her my hand. “Do you want to dance?”

She took my hand and pulled herself up. She put her arms around my neck. “Only if you hold me close to you like this.”

 _Too close, too close, too close._ I breathed and strained not to panic. Maintain eye contact, I told myself. My arms fell across her waist and my hands clasped together at her back. We were almost as close as we had been in the janitor’s closet.

We moved to the music. A slow waltz under the stars. Suddenly, she said, "You know, I think you're a really sweet guy. And I like you a lot. I thought you’d be a bad boy but… I feel safe around you. I feel like I’ve known you for a lifetime. You remind me so much of someone I know."

What was she talking about? "Who?"

"Oh, never mind. It's not important." She looked away. We continued dancing in silence, but it felt like the air had shifted.

When I noticed that, I said, “Hey, it’s getting late. Don’t you still have classes tomorrow?”

She leaned against my chest. “I don’t want to go home yet.”

I frowned. My hand traveled up and pressed against her back, comforting her. “Come on.” I whispered. “I’ll walk you home.”

She hardly said anything more on the walk to her place. She just held my hand, rubbing circles with her thumb into my knuckles. I was concerned and confused. Just moments ago, she had been ecstatic. Then suddenly… she almost seemed sad.

When we reached her front door, she thanked me for the night. “That was… probably the best first date I’ve ever been on,” she confessed, shyly tucking away a lock of her hair behind her ear. “I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

I nodded. “I’ll pick you up here.”

She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. Her lips were like soft rose petals, and their warmth stayed even after she had pulled away. I shivered.

“Good night,” she said, behind her door.

“Good night,” I echoed, looking at her. She still looked sad. Before she could close the door, I blurted out, “Hey!”

She paused. I didn’t really know what to say, but it came out anyway. “Smile more. It makes you happier.” I shrugged. “Read it on Google.” She smiled. It didn’t look forced. I smiled back. I turned to go. “’Kay, that’s all.”

“Thanks, Sungjin,” she said. I heard the door close behind me.  

 

As I stood under the running water of the shower, watching the color run from my head, off my body and into the drain between my feet, all of her smiles that night kept replaying in my head. Especially the last one. She had been so happy tonight. Maybe dates really were the kind of thing that lit her up. But then… what could have made her mood suddenly dip at the end? It bothered me to see her unhappy. And it also worried me. If I was so bothered just to see her solemn-faced… could I really could pull through with my plan?


	6. The Deal

"So, what happened to your date last night, Cass?" Cecille, one of Cass’ friends who had been at the café yesterday, asked. Brian, Cass and I were all eating together during lunch time, and Cecille slid unto our table, thankfully, before I was forced to struggle with coming up with a conversation to deflate the potential awkwardness.

Cass blushed. My eyebrow went up. I couldn’t remember the last time she got shy about talking about one of her guys. “Well… I don’t really know how to describe it.” She giggled. “I… haven’t had a date quite like that in a while.”

Brian looked up and glanced at me, as if waiting for me to object. When I said nothing, he stared at me, confused. Then he turned to Cass. “Did you go out with Kirk last night, Cass?”

Cass shook her head, still giggling. “No, it’s someone else. Actually, I have no idea why I even said I wanted to date Kirk.”

My eyes grew. Was my plan working?

“Oh wow, what changed your mind?” Brian asked.

Cass swirled her straw in her orange juice. She had a dreamy smile on her face. “I met someone at the café yesterday.”

Cecille elbowed Brian. “You should have seen him, Brian. He was the type of person who’d have a local fan club of squealing high school girls trailing after him.”

Brian wiggled his eyebrows. “You forget, Cecille. I’m the one who does all the fan stealing around here.”

Brian was good looking, talented, and intelligent, so that naturally made him popular with the girls. He was infamous for rivaling all the more popular boys in school in terms of the number of girls who liked him. I grinned to myself at the fact that Cecille thought I could have as many admirers as Brian.

Brian continued his inquiry. “So what’s this guy’s name and where is he from?”

“Sungjin,” the way Cass said the name, it was like she had spoken a prayer. I shivered. “He’s a British exchange student at the university.” She giggled, remembering yesterday. “We made eye contact the moment he walked into the café, and he had the barista bring me caramel macchiato.”

Cecille grabbed Cass, squealing for her friend. “Her favorite!!! He must read minds!”

Or he could have just been the one to order her drinks for her the past five years.

Cecille went on. “So of course we couldn’t let the chance go by! We had the barista hand him her number. And then he texted immediately after and asked her out on a date! _So_ slick.”

“So it really pushed through? Just like that?”

Cass nodded, swooning, “He chose to go around Battisti for our date. A man of taste! Then he called me and surprised me when we met up. He complimented me on my dress. He was such a gentleman. And my God, Brian, he’s so smart and interesting and funny.”

This felt weird. I knew I had been in disguise and that I was acting. Why was I wishing that she was talking about the real me instead?

Cass continued, “Then he treated me to dinner at The Secret Menu.”

Brian’s eyebrows went up. “Whoa. Advantages of dating someone who doesn’t have a high school allowance.”

No. That was literally a month’s worth of my allowance savings. I’ve never been so poor.

Cass giggled. “Solving puzzles with him at The Secret Menu was super fun, though.” Her voice became softer. “He wasn’t trying to prove anything. He admitted it when he was lost, and kept going until we figured it out. And he did everything with me, instead of trying to do it all on his own.”

I stared at her, curiously. I was actually concerned that I might have let go of the entire bad boy schtick at that time, and that she’d think I was a bit pathetic because I had no idea what I was doing at that moment (broken puzzle equipment and all). Brian’s expression also changed. “He sounds really down to earth and sweet.”

She smiled. “He really was.” She started fidgeting with her fingers. “Then on the way to the park to walk off everything we ate, we agreed on a second date. We even held hands.”

My palms started to sweat. Cecille squealed again. “Agh! I knew this would be the start of something beautiful!!!”

Cass shushed her friend, blushing again. She wouldn’t stop grinning.

This was different from the times she had gotten into more long-term relationships. She had always bragged about what crazy things the boys would do on dates, or about what their accomplishments were or what fancy talents they had. I couldn’t remember if I had ever seen her gush and go soft like this.

“Sorry,” Cecille apologized, covering her mouth. “What happened next?”

“There were some kittens at the park, so we played with them. And then we started dancing under the moonlight.” She bit her lip, hardly able to control herself. She grabbed her friend’s shoulder. “God, Cecille, I thought I would melt.”

Cecille swayed in her seat. “Oof, I feel so happy for you, Cass!!! And then???”

“He walked me home, and I kissed him on the cheek.” She looked up at us. “And he told me to smile more.”

“Ah,” Brian grinned knowingly, then teased, “was it one of those ‘you’re prettier when you smile,’ lines?”

She shook her head. “No. He told me to smile more because it makes me happy.” She shrugged and rested her cheek on her hand. “And I don’t know. It made me happy to think that he wanted me to be happy.”

I stared at her. I felt the blood leave my face. I stood up, turning to go. “Excuse me.”

“Jae?” Cass asked, confused.

I couldn’t tell her that I was overwhelmed by what I had just heard. I deflected. “If you’re not going to listen to what I have to say, I don’t see why I have to be part of this conversation.”

The room went cold. Cass stared at me, shocked. Then her brows furrowed. “Why can’t you be happy for me for once?” I looked down, unable to answer. She went on, “Look, maybe the guys I had dated before sucked. But this one’s different.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “How do you know he’s not just going to break your heart again?”

“Because he’s like–” She stopped herself. She breathed and continued, “Because he cares.”

I grunted. “God, Cass, you literally just met him yesterday. Don’t go around pretending you’ve known him your whole life.”

“Well, I’ve known you a good five years, Jae, and sometimes you make me feel like you don’t give a damn about me.”

Brian and Cecille watched us, back and forth, afraid to interrupt. I gritted my teeth, “Cass, you know that’s not true.”

She scoffed. “If you really cared then you’d have figured out a long time ago how I felt.” Then she blushed hot red and stood up from her seat. “You know what, sit down, Jae. If you can’t stand to hear my stories, I’ll take them elsewhere.”

She left her tray and stomped away towards the exit. “Cass, wait!” She ignored me. I rolled my eyes. The entire point of not dating was to avoid drama – so why do I find myself deeper and deeper into it? I chased after her. “Cass!”

I reached her in the hallway. “Cass, listen to me!”

She glared at me, saying nothing. “Cass, come on.” I tried to think of something to say. “We hardly know a thing about him. What if… I don’t know, what if he has a girlfriend back home or something?”

Her eyes narrowed, completely disgusted with me. “Can you hear yourself right now?” She pointed at me. “Can you just admit to yourself that you don’t want to see me happy with any guy?”

I sighed. “Come on, Cass, I was really supportive of your first relationships. But you just kept on breaking up with guy after guy over smaller and smaller things and…” I choked. “Cass, don’t you just want to give yourself a break?”

Her eyes looked glassy and her jaw was clenched. “Jae,” she said fiercely, “if this one breaks my heart, I will never date again.”

My heart stopped. I stared at her. “Are you serious?”

“Doesn’t that make you happy?” she asked sharply.

I stammered. “I-I…”

She looked down at her feet. She was glowing red, and she was shaking. “Look, Jae, I keep myself up at night crying over how desperate I’ve gotten, alright? You probably think I’m an idiot for dating one guy after another and not realizing it’s breaking me but – guess what – I’m painfully aware of it every. Waking. Moment.” She spat, “I’m probably more stupid for not being able to stop even if I know I’m not happy _._ ” Hot tears started pouring down her face, and her voice fell. “I wanted to run away from the fact that I might never be happy.”

I trembled. She was carrying this weight all this time? “Cass, you never told me–”

She looked me straight in the eye. “Jae, Sungjin gives me hope that maybe I can fall in love.” She gulped. “For real.”

The magnitude of her words hit me like a rock. _For real?_

I couldn’t believe it. I know I had been trying my best to be charming, but I was well aware that I had no capacity to make a girl fall for me at will. Especially not after a day. Especially not like this. “Why?”

She breathed, fighting not to cry more than she already was. “I see something in him, Jae. You wouldn’t understand because you’ve cut yourself off from loving.”

My mouth went dry at the accusation. I couldn’t say anything. She went on, “So there. If Sungjin breaks my heart, I swear to you,” she gritted her teeth, “I will never date again. But until then,” her eyes pierced through me, “you have to promise not to stop me. Do we have a deal?”

“Cass…”

“Jae, do we have a deal?”

I swallowed. I nodded. She nodded back, and then walked away, leaving me in the middle of the empty hallway.

What the hell was I doing? Everything was going according to plan, and yet I hated it.


	7. Wounds from A Sincere Friend Are Better than Many Kisses from An Enemy

I could hardly concentrate on my history quiz. My eyes glazed over the names and dates, but nothing was catching. My leg was bouncing rapidly and I leaned forward to feel more blood in my brain. I was consumed in agitation.

Cassandra said she’d stop dating if Sungjin broke her heart. This was literally everything I was doing this for. Going into this, I knew the consequences – so then why was the guilt and anxiety hitting me like a truck?

“Jae?” the teacher called my name as she passed by my seat. She must have seen how uncomfortable I was. “Is everything alright?”

I looked up and nodded. “Yeah, just trying to jog up my memory.”

She nodded and continued walking between the aisles. I stared back at the quiz paper. _Come on, Jae, get it together_ , I told myself. I felt the phone in my bag vibrate. I peeked at the screen from my desk, and the header for a text from Wonpil flashed. It was probably something about the photoshoot later.

I closed my eyes and monitored my breathing. Wonpil and his clubmates were expecting me to go. And I had promised Cassandra to meet her for a second date. I couldn’t back down – my plan was already working, and besides, if Sungjin suddenly disappeared now, Cass’s promise would still hold true. I had reached the point of no return. There was no going back the moment I had walked into that café. I _had_ to finish this.

I poured myself into the test paper in front of me and started circling my answers. I whispered under my breath, “Let’s just get this over with.”

 

“Yeah, see you next time,” I said, looking over my shoulder as I exited the photography club room in my black turtleneck and trench coat. Suddenly I bumped into someone.

“Sorry!” we both exclaimed. Then our eyes settled on each other. Both of our mouths dropped. I spun around and started walking away just as Brian cried, “Jae?!”

I tried to ignore it and walked as fast as my long legs could take me, but Brian jogged up ahead and stopped me. “Jae!”

I exhaled and faced him. “What?”

Brian stared in disbelief. “What are you doing dressed like that? I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“I’m just helping Wonpil out in his photography club,” I explained.

Brian squinted. “You helped Wonpil out.”

I raised my hands, “Hey, I do nice things once in a while.”

Brian tapped his foot and crossed his arms. “You help Wonpil out and you willingly leave a room dressed like someone out of a magazine. And you tried to run from me. Something’s not adding up here.”

I grunted. Brian knew me too well. “How’d you figure out it was me?”

Brian scoffed. “I was there the day you broke your nose in the playground, stupid. And I know what you look like without glasses because we’ve shared changing rooms before. And I’d recognize your voice anywhere.” He shifted his weight. “So what’s the deal?”

I sighed. “Alright, come with me.”

We exited the school together and headed towards my place so that I could drop off my things. On the way there, I said, “Hey, you remember that you said you’d help me get Cass to stop dating, right?”

Brian squinted at me. “Yeah…?”

“Alright so do you remember the story Cass was telling earlier today?”

It only took a moment before Brian stopped cold in the middle of the sidewalk. “Holy crap, Jae, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

I cringed. He was smart enough to catch on without me explaining everything.

“What the hell, Jae!” Brian exploded. I sighed. I should have seen this coming. I turned around to face him. “Hey, you said you’d help me.”

Brian shook his head. “ _Clearly_ , you can dig your grave on your own! How the hell did you even come up with this?!”

I grabbed his shoulder. “Dammit, Brian, bring your voice down! People are going to hear you!”

Brian growled but complied. “What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing, Jae?”

“Look, when I followed her out at lunch today, she told me that she’d stop dating if Sungjin broke her heart. It’s working. I just have to finish this and then everything will be fine.”

Brian stared at me in outraged disgust. “Do you realize that you are, first of all, about to shatter your best friend’s heart into a million pieces, and, secondly, blatantly breaking your own stupid code about not dating?”

My brows furrowed. Brian narrowed his eyes at me. “Did you think that just because you’re pretending to be someone else, you wouldn’t be personally responsible for any of that anymore?”

I shook my head, “She won’t know.”

His eyes flared up. “Yeah, but I would!” He poked my chest. “And you would!”

I grunted, looking away. “Ugh, I shouldn’t have told you.”

His jaw dropped. “Oh my God, do you not have an _ounce_ of remorse in you?!”

“I do!” I spat at him. “Look, I am _tired_ of seeing her get heartbroken over and over again. Every time she cries on my shoulder, I feel it. Every time she asks me why over the phone, I feel it. Every dashed hope and shattered love – _I feel it._ I just want her to freaking respect herself and give her heart a rest. I am drawing the line.”

Brian stared at me, frowning. I sighed. “Cass has a huge heart. She’s always been the type to love so hard that it breaks her. She gives and gives even if it feels like she never gets what she wants. I just… I just want her to be happy.”

Brian exhaled. “No, Jae. You want her to think like you.”

My eyes darted to him. He crossed his arms. “You are scared to the bones of falling in love. You are too guarded to be vulnerable, too stubborn to let love change you, and too proud to make mistakes. And you think that that’s the best way to be happy in this world – at least until, I don’t know, you’re finally able to achieve some kind of impossible ideal.” He looked away. “I feel like the older we get and the more this goes on, the more you implode into yourself with that. I’ve never really agreed with _either_ of you about this whole thing. She dates too much and you insist on your own opinion like a control freak. I help you because you’re my friend and I care for Cass too. You’ve always treaded on the line, but I am _telling_ you now, this is going too far.”

“I have tried _everything,_ Brian, you know I have. You know I wouldn’t do this if I wasn’t desperate.”

Brian grunted, “No, you are _blind._ If you would only open your eyes to what you feel or to what Cass feels then you wouldn’t be causing a disaster like this.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What the hell are you implying?”

“Argh!” Brian yelled into the sky in frustration. “I hate being in the middle of all this!” He looked me in the eye and said, “I can’t spell it out for you, and even if I did, you wouldn’t believe me. But forget that. The main point is, this is wrong, Jae. You have to come clean.”

I shook my head. “Brian, you don’t understand, she’s _so close_ to stopping. I can’t!”

He grabbed my turtle neck sweater. “Stop it, Jae! You are not only going to hurt her, you are going to hurt her so much nothing’s going to fix it! If she never falls in love again, this is your fault!”

I gulped and hung my head. “No one’s good enough for her, anyway.”

He stared at me, dumbfounded by what I had just said. Then he shook with anger, his clutched fist on my sweater tightening. “You are _such_ a f-cking idiot, Jae, goddammit.”

He pushed me and I stumbled back before regaining my balance. He turned and walked away.

“Brian!” I called after him.

“I am _not_ going to help you with this one, man.” He half turned, glaring at me. “You might as well have asked me to help you kill her.”

He faced forward and walked away in brisk, angry steps. Under his breath, he grunted, “Even if she doesn’t hate you after this, you will hate yourself for it.”

I exhaled heavily. His words hung cripplingly, almost like a weight around my neck. I fell against the wall and crumbled to my haunches on the sidewalk.

Growing up, my parents had told me that it was better to accept a strike from a friend than a kiss from an enemy. People sometimes hurt those they care about for their own good. And this whole time, I thought that’s what I was doing. But maybe I had become the enemy.

           

Somehow I arrived at home and dropped my things. I lay in my bed, staring at the ceiling in a stupor.

_You might as well have asked me to help you kill her._

Was it that bad?

I pressed the wrist of my fist against my forehead, as if in an effort to stop the spinning. Was it the world? Was it my mind? All I knew was that everything seemed to whirl and swim.

I just didn’t want to her to keep getting hurt.

But… what if I end up making her never feel happy again?

_Even if she doesn’t hate you after this, you will hate yourself for it._

Fact check, Brian. I already _do_ hate myself for this.

 

I felt paralyzed, but the tick of the clock pulled me on my feet. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was hardly even in touch with what was around me. Next thing I knew, I was at Cass’s front door. I was a little surprised when the door swung open, then I realized that my finger had rung their bell.

“Hey, Sungjin.” Cass stood there, in a warm, daisy-colored dress that swirled around her supple form. Her auburn hair waved in soft curls, framing her darling smile. I felt my insides ache. God, why did she have to look like this tonight?

“You’re so pretty it hurts,” the words just escaped under my breath. She blinked, a little surprised. I bit my lip, realizing I had said that out loud. _You really are an idiot, Jae._ “Sorry, I’m a little out of it today.”

She blushed, shaking her head. “No, no, don’t apologize. I thought it was sweet.”

How much longer are you going to think I’m sweet?

“So, do you want to go?” I asked, pushing things along.

“Sure!” She stepped out and took my hand, intertwining her fingers with mine. I almost felt like recoiling when she did. I swallowed. This had to end tonight.

And I was going to see it through to the very end.

I turned to her and forced a smile, squeezing her hand. “I’m starving! Let’s get that lobster!” 

 

While we were walking and having dinner, I found myself just staring at Cass. I watched how her cupid’s bow lips pulled up into a glowing crescent smile. How the corners of her eyes crinkled when she laughed. How the deep blue of her eyes sparkled like the ocean’s surface on a summer day. How the wind played with her hair and brushed it across the apple of her soft cheeks. How she tilted her head toward me, like a playfully furtive doe. We were still teasing and joking back and forth, sure, but I kept looking at her.

This girl was my best friend. She was the one I had spent countless afternoons with, just talking in the café after school. She was the one who cheered me on from the bleachers at all my badminton games. She was the one who sent me postcards with rough sketches of the two of us doing things in different cities if only I had joined her to visit her dad. She was the one who made me fall deeper in love with music while I taught her how to play guitar. She was the one who listened to me when I rambled about politics or literature or religion or the latest video game. She was the one who laughed like I was the funniest person in the world when I was really just an awkward dork.

She was precious.

She was the only person I could truly be myself around.

And I was about to break her while pretending to be someone I’m not.

It hurt just to look at her. And yet, while she twirled around and led me forward by the hand, while she carefully picked up the lobster claws so that the juice wouldn’t splatter on her dress, while she giggled about the things Cecille had said about her crazy younger brothers – my eyes couldn’t leave her for a second.

 

After the meal, we walked around aimlessly, staring at the stars peeking between the buildings overhead.

"Hey, look at that one," I said as I pointed to a man-like figure in the dark skies. I tried to remember the astronomy lessons my grandfather gave me.

"And that one!" Her hands stretched out to the sky and seemed to touch a light, blurred figure of a deer. She leaned against my shoulder, still staring up at the sky. "It's a beautiful night tonight."

I glanced down to look at her, and then suddenly became aware of my surroundings. It was then that I realized we were walking along the river. My heart sank. I didn’t want the memories of this place to be mixed with what I was going to do.

But before I could do anything, she pulled me toward a grassy area nearby and lay down. The lights glimmered in the water the way they did in the sky. The waters murmured quietly as they rushed and burbled over the rocks and between the crags. Just as I settled down beside her, she curled into me, her head resting on the crook of my shoulder and her arm falling over my chest. She smelled like strawberries. Instinctively, my hand started combing through her silky hair. The coolness of the river pulled Cassandra’s warm body closer to me.

I turned my head to face her. After a few moments, she smiled. “You’ve been looking at me like that all night.”

I smirked. “Were you always this pretty?”

She chuckled. I looked into her eyes. I knew they were blue. But I never knew you could hear them calling out to you like this.

In the quiet, I could hear her tender breathing. The rhythm of her rise and fall lulled me into a trance. I could feel myself coming undone.

She was so close. I felt her heart beating against my ribs, separated by hardly more than thin cloth and young blood. There was a pulsing magnetism coming from her that I couldn’t explain.

She was overpowering. I felt weak before her. I whispered, “I never thought we would ever be like this.”

“I never thought I would find someone like you.” She leaned in, bringing her nose against mine. Her breath brushed over my lips as she murmured, “Kiss me.”

“Cassandra,” I murmured, a faint urgency inside of me fighting for salience amidst the intoxicating cloud of her strawberries and the softness of her form draped over the left side of my body. “I’m not who you think I am.”

“No,” she said, letting go of whatever restraint had kept her at bay this whole time, “but I’ll take it.”

She kissed me.

Her arms had somehow moved around to hug my neck. The soft touch of her lips exploded over me, overwhelming all my senses and shaking up my consciousness. I drowned in the vibrancy of her – all the world was her hair falling over my ear, her tender fingers caressing my nape, her heaving body over my chest, and her candy mouth at the nexus of it all. I grasped on to her like a man lost at sea.

I thought I would never breathe again.

She broke away, gasping for air.

“Cassandra,” I murmured.

“Jae…”

I opened my eyes. I felt her muscles tense around me. I froze. She went ghost white. She gulped, shaking.

“Wh-what?” I croaked out, weakly. I was stupefied. My brain had just been turned to mush, and now it had completely shut down. What? _What?_

She jolted up straight and grabbed her bag. “Sorry, I need to go somewhere.”

I sat up, still catching my breath and reorienting myself, “Wh-what? Why?” I shook my head. I didn’t fully grasp it, but it was stupid to ask that. “Wait, never mind that. I just– what just happened?”

I could hardly form coherent sentences. She was already walking away. I jumped up. I didn’t know what just happened. I didn’t know what I was doing. But I couldn’t just let her walk away like that.

“Cass!”

Suddenly she halted. She turned around slowly. Her brows furrowed. “Say that again.”

I stared at her, confused. “Say what again?”

Her eyes grew large. She charged at me and grabbed me by the collar. “Alright, I don’t know what the _hell_ is going on but I deserve an explanation. Why the hell do you sound like that?”

“Sound like wha–” Oh crap.

I had dropped the accent.

I went cold.

“Dammit, say something! What is this?!” she shrieked, confused and scared and furious as all hell. She looked desperate to wake up from a nightmare.

“I-I–” I stammered stupidly. Holy God, what was I supposed to say?

She pounded on my chest, erratic and frightened. “What the hell is this?! _WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!”_

“Alright!” I snapped, grabbing her wrists to stop her. She stared at me, hot tears pouring out from her eyes. She was hoping against hope for it not to be true. I hung my head. “Alright. It’s me.”

She trembled, anguished cries escaping her. I swallowed. This was the end.

“It’s Jae.”


	8. Self-Destruction

She looked like everything she knew had been shattered. Cass shook her head, sobbing. She dropped to her knees, and I followed her down. She covered her face, but her tears still spilled between her frail fingers and down her bony wrists.

“I hate you,” she finally whispered between sobs. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”

I exhaled, unable to look at her. I deserved it. She fell forward against me, and clung unto my shirt. She pounded against me again, quivering, with fading strength, sobbing into my chest. “I hate you. How could you do this to me?”

I took every blow. All my reasons fell to ashes. I felt black inside. I was so worthless. My voice was absent – I couldn’t even apologize. And what would that do?

She crumbled deeper into me. Then she whispered, “Hold me.”

“Wh-wha…?”

“Hold me, please,” she pleaded again, crying even more. I complied, sitting and scooping her close. I felt like I was caressing the shivering form of a damaged string puppet. She cried like I had never seen anyone cry before. She clutched unto my tear-soaked shirt so tight I thought the fabric would tear. All the night was filled with crickets, the river, and her forlorn whimpering.

I thought the tears would never stop. I felt dirty, holding her like this. I shouldn’t even be allowed near her. Every tear that fell seemed to drill a hole into my heart. I was bleeding from holding all the broken pieces from the mess I made. She should be comforted by someone who would never dare to hurt her.

Finally, she murmured, almost inaudibly, in a fractured voice, “Why?”

I looked at her. I didn’t want to say anything anymore. I just felt like I would hurt her more. She repeated, barely any louder, “Why did you do this?”

“I just wanted you to stop, Cass,” I whispered. “In the janitor’s closet… I was… I don’t know, I was just scared,” I confessed, my voice shaking.

She frowned. She asked, with pain in her voice, “Do you really hate me so much that you’d be scared of the possibility that I could love you?”

My voice caught in my throat. How could she think that? “No, of course not.”

“Was this some sort of punishment for crossing the line?” She questioned in confusion. “For not respecting your principles?”

I shook my head. “Cass, no. I couldn’t do that to you.”

“Then why?”

I cracked. I couldn’t help but grip unto her tighter. There could be no more lies in front of her. My voice was as small as I felt. “I was scared you were throwing yourself away to someone as worthless as me.”

“I don’t understand,” she murmured, lost.

I buried my head into her hair, too ashamed to hold my chin up. “You were always so beautiful, Cass. You deserve the best the world has to offer. But that just isn’t me.”

“What?” she breathed, barely comprehending.

“It scared me that we were on the verge of a line I never wanted to cross. I’m just another unhappy ending, Cass.” I choked. “But I was more scared of the tiny hope inside of me gripping onto the chance that I could be someone I’m not – your happy ever after.”

She lifted her head to face me. Her eyes searched my face, trying to make sense of what I was saying.

“I wanted everything to stop,” I admitted. “I wanted to kill the hope inside of me that I was – that I could become – the kind of person who could make you happy.” I winced, swallowing. “So I broke your heart before you could even have the chance to make the mistake of falling in love with me.”

She slapped me across the face, my tears splattering. I grunted. I was absolutely pathetic.

She pushed me, moving back. Her eyes felt like daggers. “I hate you.” Then the hard sobbing came back. She stared at me with her glassy eyes, sparkling with heartbreak. “God, how could you even think that?”

I couldn’t meet her eyes. She looked down and gulped. She shook her head. “We really do deserve each other. We’re both self-destructive little pricks.”

She stood up and walked away, still crying. My head fell into my hands. Well, she was at least half right.

 

My alarm rang. And rang. And rang. I didn’t even have the energy to switch it off.

The sun’s rays splayed over the blanket, and I could feel its faint heat over my bed sore limbs. My head felt like cotton and my throat felt like a rock was permanently lodged in it. I could hear the house coming to life in the morning – and it just felt like a disturbance.

A rushed knock rapped on my door. “Skinny Bone Jones, you better get up for bacon and steak on pancakes!”

Slovenly, I pushed myself up, stopping my alarm. I had never felt heavier. Propped up against my arm, I saw my reflection in my mirror. I had crashed into my bed in the black turtleneck. Furious, I clawed off the sweater and threw it against the wall.

Seething, I stared at the black lump that had fallen at the foot of my door. My eyes trailed back to my reflection. My fading maroon bedhead hair looked like crap, and my make up had worn off to reveal small red eyes, smothered by tear-stained poufiness. My crooked nose felt like a crack in my face. My pallid skin hardly hid my peeking ribs. My trunk was too long, and my limbs looked like frail toothpicks. My moles dotted my skin like stains. I had never hated what I saw in that mirror more.

 

I walked to school, black hood up and zipped to my chin. I didn’t want to deal with Cass and Brian in the bus. I would have zipped the hoodie all the way up if I didn’t need to see where I was going. By the time I had reached the school gates, I felt numb and burned out and exhausted – and I was dreading what more the day could do to me.

I did everything I could to avoid Brian and Cass. I couldn’t face them. Hell, I could hardly face myself. During lunch, I stole away from the rest of the droves of students making their way to the cafeteria. I just… needed to be away from everything. Appetite was a bit of a foreign concept right now, anyway.

I entered the library, and naturally, I was alone, apart from the kids cramming homework in the science section and the overworked college applicant napping on the bean bag. I went to the most secluded aisle among the rows and rows of vanilla-scented paperbacks and hardcovers. I sank down unto the time-worn wooden floor and pulled my legs towards me. I crossed my arms over my knees and bowed my head into them.

I felt vile. Disgusting. Pathetic. Frustrated by my irrationality. Ashamed of my selfishness. Overwhelmed by what I lacked. Stupid. Guilty. Wretched.

A liar.

A coward.

I felt like the cord that connected Cass and me lay rotting and limp on the ground, ruptured by the poison at my core.

But perhaps, for all the hell being with me caused her, I deserved all this suffering. And maybe, this was how things should be.

Cass, angry, indignant, spurned from love. From me. From weak-willed, scared, batsh-t crazy me.

And me, finally incapacitated from suffocating her, knocked down for compulsively choking the life out of her.

I knew the consequences.

I thought of the plan in a split second, but maybe at the back of my mind I already understood what waited ahead.

If Cass kept dating, I would only oppose it. She would continue to get her heart broken, and I would drive both of us to the edge trying to get her to stop, like blades to a grinder. We would fight with each other like dogs, rabid and blind with rage. And yet I couldn’t say no to her or stay mad for long. My irritation would build, and my pent-up frustration would broil and threaten to burst – yet I still could never say no to her. At the end of the day, I couldn’t be without her. The cycle wouldn’t, couldn’t end.

It was only getting worse. Our crazy cycle was spiraling so far out of control that it was beginning to point her to me.

And if she ever fell for me, I would give in.

Not even my stupid code would be enough to hold me back any longer. All my well-reasoned arguments would crumble the moment she would look into my eyes and tell me she wanted me. I would fall into the trap of believing I could be the one to make her happy.

But I knew I would ruin her all the same.

Because I _wasn’t_ prince charming – I wasn’t Superman, or Robinhood, or Peter Pan. I wasn’t the one who could save her. No, I wasn’t worth sh-t. It wasn’t just that I wanted a life without complications, a life that was in order and where I was in control. It wasn’t just that love was complex. It was because I knew all I was under the collected demeanor and focused discipline was troubled thoughts and the self-esteem to match. And love was going to blow open the dam.

But I couldn’t say no to her. I could never say no to her. Especially not if she told me she loved me.

The only thing that would keep me away from her was for her to want nothing to do with me.

I guess you could say I wasn’t really counting on her never finding me out.

Because the truth was, it wasn’t just Cass that I had to stop. I had to stop myself.

So this was it. This was the end. The end of her chain dating. The end of our quarrelling. The end of my obsessive control over her. Of our whirlwind cycle. Of our honey-bile pattern. Of our toxicity.

The end of us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Take note that this is chapter 8 of 11.


	9. Stitches

I hadn’t noticed the hours pass. I was only called back to the present when my phone vibrated in the hoodie pocket against my abdomen. My muscles ached, and I unfolded myself, stretching my legs across what bare space there was between the shelves.

I knew it was Wonpil, asking where I was. I didn’t want to respond. I didn’t want to ever see those amber eyes and waxed up hair in the mirror ever again. But… I also didn’t have the heart to disappoint another person in the span of less than 24 hours.

The phone continued to vibrate as I sat, paralyzed over what to do. Then suddenly, a shadow fell over me. I turned. It was Wonpil, his phone still against his ear. When he saw me, he slowly put down the phone, and the vibrating on my stomach stopped. “I knew something was wrong.”

I turned away. I didn’t want to be comforted, especially not by _Wonpil._ But he sat a couple feet away from me anyway. We sat in quiet for a while. Maybe he thought I’d suddenly start opening up. Fat chance.

“You weren’t dressing up just as a favor to me, huh?” he guessed, breaking the silence.

My eyes narrowed. Why was I so transparent?

“It’s okay. I know it wasn’t really something you wanted to do,” he mumbled. I glanced at him, suddenly feeling sorry in my chest.

“You’re talented, Wonpil,” I said. “I’m just messed up. You’re probably better off with a more cooperative model.”

He pouted. “Hey, I wasn’t doing it just for the sake of my craft, you know.” He looked me in the eye. “I wanted you to see what you could be.” He half-smiled. But his words struck like an arrow through the heart.

I exhaled. “I saw it. I think it brought out the real me.” I bowed my head. “And that just made me hate myself more.”

Wonpil frowned, and his forehead crinkled. “I’m sorry,” he squeaked.

“No, no,” I shook my head. “It’s my fault that I’m the way I am. You were just trying to help.”

His face crumpled. “I feel like… maybe I made things worse.”

“Oh God, Wonpil, it’s not like that,” I denied guiltily.

“Then what do you mean?” he pleaded.

I sighed. Where was I even supposed to begin?

"Is… is this about Cass?”

I raised an eyebrow. “How did you know?”

“Well, if there’s anything in the world that can affect you this much, she probably has something to do with it.”

I frowned and crossed my legs over each other. I stared at my shoes. Wonpil pressed on. “Did the two of you fight?”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. “When have we not?” I rubbed my temple. “But I think this might have been the last time.”

Wonpil’s eyes grew. Then he said, “That’s impossible.”

I scoffed. “Believe me, I screwed this one hard enough to make it possible.”

Wonpil frowned. “But you’re going to fix it, right?”

My eyebrows furrowed. Wonpil repeated, “You’re going to work it out with her, right?”

I stared at him. Fix it? How could I possibly work it out with her? There was no going back. That was the entire point. And yet I couldn’t find it in myself to tell Wonpil no.

 “Park!” Someone yelled, shredding the sacred silence of the library. Wonpil and I jumped to our feet. Max was panting at the door, heaving like a raging bull. “I know this is where you go to sh-t your pants so COME OUT ALREADY!”

I narrowed my eyes and shook my head, striding to the left, Wonpil scuttling after me. “Why does everyone try to make my whereabouts their business?”

The librarian stood up, “Max Smith, this is the library! Contain yourself!”

Max roared, then trudged towards the books. “Not until that f-cking pussy shows his face!”

I grunted, unable to keep my cool, “No need to make yourself more of a public nuisance than you already are, jackass!”

“Where are you, Park?” He growled, speeding through the aisles. Wonpil, scared, grabbed unto my arm as we scissored to the other side of the room, covered behind the rows and rows of books. Max ranted, “Cass won’t even look me in the face and I _know_ you had something to do with it!”

I smirked. Good going, Cass. I taunted, swerving through the maze of shelves. “Ever thought that maybe your _face_ had something to do with it?”

“Max, stop it! I am going to call your parents!” the librarian threatened. Max just scoffed. “Hit me up if they bother to pick up.”

I looked over my shoulder at Wonpil. “Wonpil, we better split. He won’t hurt you. Just get out of here.”

“But what about you?” he squeaked, worry in his eyes. I rolled my eyes. “Ugh, Wonpil, I’ll be fine. I’ve dealt with Max before.”

“But you had Brian with you then,” Wonpil reasoned. I frowned. “Look, I’ll think of something. Just go.”

At that moment Max spied us from the historical lit section. He charged at us and I shoved Wonpil away and started dashing to the references section, Max tailing after me.

“I don’t have the energy to be dealing with this,” I groaned. I looked over my shoulder just as Max grabbed a book and hurtled it at me. I ducked and took a hard left at the end of the aisle. The heavy encyclopedia slammed against the wall then thudded on the floor. Yikes. That wouldn’t be a pretty bruise. The librarian was entering hysterics. She started dialing for the school security.

“Damaging school property. You aren’t scared of anything getting on your permanent record anymore, huh?” I quipped.

“Quit your wise mouthing and just get over here!” Max spat, catapulting another book my way. It grazed my shoulder and I pulled to the side, bumping into the shelf. I pushed forward, but Max was gaining on me. Throwing food was one thing, but I wouldn’t dare to get any of these books trashed up. I had to think of another way to get him to stop. I took a hard right and beelined toward the exit. I had to take the bull out of the china shop.

But Max threw another book, and this one hit square between the shoulders. I was knocked forward and fell on my belly. I immediately started picking myself up, but Max grabbed my shoulder and yanked me up and turned me around. Max threw a punch but I blocked, my forearms taking the blow. I pulled my legs in and kicked him off of me, then I rolled to get unto my feet again. He gripped my ankle and tugged, making me fall down beside him again. I kicked away his meaty hands and pulling myself up against the shelf. He launched himself at me, and my back collided with the edge of the shelf. I yelped in pain. He threw another punch, but I managed to bend out of the way.

Just then, a large blur ambushed him and tackled him to the ground. I stared in shock. “Brian?!”

“Get the f-ck off of me, assh-le!” Max roared, grappling with Brian.

“Brian, what the hell are you doing here?!” I exclaimed, panicking over what to do with the sudden turn of events.

“Wonpil said your butt needed saving!” Brian retorted, about to pound down on Max. Max spun the two of them around, gaining the upper hand. Max pulled back to punch, but Brian grabbed his wrist and kneed Max’s crotch. Max yapped, falling forward. Brian shirked him off and scrambled up. We both started running toward the exit again.

“I thought you didn’t want to be involved anymore,” I commented. Both of us skidded to the left, Max raging at our heels.

“I hate how you’re always getting into trouble, Jae.” Then he smirked at me. “But promise not to get into trouble without me.”

If we weren’t running for our lives, I would have hugged him. I grinned, laughing. Brian was the best.

The school security started filing into the library. We were almost there. Just a little more to the exit.

Then suddenly a hulking mass collided into me, and I crashed forward. Max was strangling me. As my world blinked white and black, Brian lurched unto Max and the three of us rolled on the floor. We wrestled, a whirling tangle of violent limbs and blows.

We kept crashing into the nearby shelf, and it began to teeter. I was the first to notice. “Guys, stop it! The shelf!”

In their rampage, they ignored me. Brian kicked and it missed, hitting the board at the base of the shelf, just as it was teetering forward. The shelf loomed over like the mouth of Leviathan, its rows and rows of teeth yawned exposed. “Screw it,” I gritted my teeth and packed all of my force in throwing Brian and Max off to the side. The books rained down, then the wooden shelf followed it.

 

The next thing I knew, I was in a sterile white room, lying in a bed with thin, crisp sheets. The first thing I noticed was the pain at my left temple. I winced and touched it lightly. I winced again. Suddenly, pain from all over shot through me. I grunted. My whole body felt sore, and I was hurting in places I didn’t know could hurt. Then I noticed my companion in the chair a few feet away from me.

I stared at her, curled up into a ball, resting soundly in the chair. Then my heart ached, remembering everything. Even in her sleep, she looked like she had been crying the whole night before. What was she doing here?

At that moment, the doctor entered. “Oh, you’re awake!”

Cass lifted her head at that. “Hi, Doc.”

She smiled, then walked towards me. “You were already getting pretty beaten up because of your little library skirmish, but that bookshelf full of world history books did not help. Nothing’s broken though.” She smirked. “Max and Brian are pretty much fine, by the way, thanks to you.” She scrunched her nose. “Well, fine except that Max might be expelled after this.”

Somehow I managed to smirk. The doctor went on, “Well, because of that book case, you have a mild concussion, and we had to give you stitches on your forehead. You’ll live.”

She approached me and ran some tests on me, checking my sight and memory, among other things. I seemed fine. She grinned, “You should be out in a few hours. I’ll see you, then!”

She exited, leaving Cass and me alone. I looked away from her. Cass stood from her chair and approached my bedside. I mumbled, “You don’t have to be here, you know.”

“Wonpil told me what happened,” she said. I grunted. Trying to get Cass and I to patch up was _definitely_ something Wonpil would do. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“I’m… fine,” I said as she went to the pitcher on the bedside table. She poured a glass of water, then offered it to me. I stared at it. “You don’t have to do this.”

She pushed it closer. “Yeah, but _you_ have to keep yourself from being dehydrated.”

I frowned, taking the glass from her. I gulped it down, but it tasted stale and hard. She tried to take the glass from me, but my grip on it stayed. I mumbled, “Just… just go and be mad at me.”

 “I _am_ mad at you,” Cass grunted, crossing her arms. “Gimme the glass.”

I relented and she took the glass from me and put it on the table. I kept my eyes downcast. “Really, Cass. What are you doing here?”

“Did you think I’d suddenly stop worrying about you?” She retorted.

Damn. Even after everything, she still had the kindest heart in the world. I bowed forward, swallowing. “I don’t deserve you.”

She frowned, and just stood there a moment, saying nothing. She looked away. She whispered, “It hurts when you say that.”

I lifted my head towards her, my eyes a little wider. She hugged herself, rubbing her thumb over her folded arm. “I always knew being rejected by you would hurt.” She pursed her lips. “Five years. God.” She bent forward, shaking her head. “I always knew you’d say no. But somehow this hurts more.”

“… I’m sorry,” I finally mumble.

“I don’t want to hear it.” She bit her lip and whispered, a little tentatively, “Maybe it’s about time we started being honest with each other.” She looked me straight in the eyes. “I like you, Jae. I have been falling in love with you for the past five years.”

My heart stopped. God, she actually said it.

“It was always you. But no matter what I did, you wouldn’t stop seeing me as a friend. And I could never tell you. You were always just so stubborn about your stupid code. So I dated to distract myself from the fact that you’d never love me that way. I dated to find someone to replace you. And then I found that if I dated the worst guys, it would get your attention. And I drove it as far as I could so that you would swoop in and save me. Comfort me. Hold me.” Her voice cracked. She sat down on my bed, too emotional to stand any longer. “All those boys were nothing to me, Jae. All I ever wanted was you. And yet I still chased after them because I would rather be hurt by them than by you.”

F-ck. I felt like a sword had been thrust through me, and it was tearing me open.

“God, I knew I was screwed, Jae. I knew I was just fooling myself, and I hated myself for it, but I just. Couldn’t. Stop.” Tears started to brim in her eyes. “I was scared to death that I’d never be happy. Then Sungjin came along.” She breathed. “I almost couldn’t believe my luck. He was just like you – except he could be mine.”

She bent forward, laughing sadly. The first of her tears finally spilled. The sword twisted sharply inside of me. She went on. “Everything inside of me wanted him to be you. Everything about the way he spoke, and the way he made me laugh. From the gentleness he treated me with, to the humility and respect that he showed. Everything about the way he looked at me. I wanted it to be you. And when we kissed – f-ck it, Jae, when we kissed all I was thinking about was you.”

Kill me. Just kill me now. Her fingers dug into the sheets at my side. “I had no idea what I was wishing for.” She shook her head. “God, I just wanted to die. I was so ashamed. I felt like the universe made a joke about human stupidity and my life was the sorry punchline. But I couldn’t hate myself for long because I was so mad at you.” She looked up at me, tears streaming down her face. “I hate you, Park Jaehyung. I really do. But you know what I hate more?”

I remained silent. My lip trembled, and my eyes began to sting.

“I hate that you don’t see yourself the way I see you.”

She was fully sobbing at this point. “You were… you were just polaroid pin boards and premier movie tickets. You were caramel macchiatos on rainy days. You were summer postcards and Cheetos cheat days. You were all-nighter Redbulls and delivery pizza. You were lunchbreak banter and midnight secrets. You were umbrellas when I forgot to bring mine, and extra large hoodies when I felt cold. And I know I’m not making sense, but you were those four f-cking guitar chords – and you were everywhere.”

I was so shaken. The memories flashed like a flood, and my heart twisted with all the emotions in each of those moments over the course of five years. “But I don’t see myself in those memories,” I murmured, choking. “All I see is you.”

She punched me and fell forward against me. “Jae, you’re an idiot.”

She shook her head against my chest, catching her breath. “How can you not see it?” She pleaded, “What’s it going to take for you to believe?”

“How can you ask that after everything I’ve done?” I croaked. “Cass, I’m just going to break us.”

For a moment, she said nothing. Then she slowly pulled herself to sit up. Her fingers gingerly crept under my hoodie sleeve. She followed my vein until her fingertips grazed a silver chain. She grinned faintly, as if what she knew had been confirmed. I watched, absorbed, as she slid her finger into a hook and teased the silver chain out so both of us could see it. We both stared at the bracelet she had given me on the first day we met.

“This is how I know we’re going to be okay,” she whispered. “Every day, for five years, through everything we’ve been through, you’ve never stopped wearing it.”

I stared at her. I felt my chest tightening. I was speechless. It was like the entire world was suddenly burning white.

Then Cass breathed, “I should let you rest.” She took her things and started heading to the door. Just as she touched the doorknob, she turned to face me. “Jae.”

I looked back at her. She was wearing a plain brown blouse and the same sneakers she had worn for two years. Her usually ironed hair fell down in soft, wild waves, just like when I had first met her. Her eyes were a little crusty and tired, but they held all the tenderness in the world when she said, “Get better, okay?”

Then she went out the door.

Just that moment. That single, crystalline moment.

_I don’t want to lose you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personally, I'm not happy with the pacing of this, but I also promised myself I wouldn't be too much of a perfectionist over this, or else I would never get anything done. I hope you guys still like it, though!


	10. About Time

I sat up in the bed, staring at the door, my heart beating. Adrenalin throttled through me like a shot of lightning. I could hardly process what I was thinking, but suddenly I felt like I was about to run a marathon.

It was like someone had torn open my mind, and it was only then that I realized it had been a cage.

Cass and I had already gone through the worst of hell. All our precautions to control ourselves from hurting each other had only unleashed the ugliest things in us. Yet she was still there for me. And, by God, I knew I would always be there for her, too.

Because that’s just who I was.

Damn, how had I been such an idiot?

I sprang up from the bed, throwing off the blanket. But before both of my feet could even touch the ground, the world began to swim and I collapsed on my side, just barely saving myself from crashing on the floor. I groaned, and my concussion scolded me for attempting to move so fast.

While I was internally kicking myself in frustration for being so pathetic, someone entered the room. They immediately rushed to my side. “Dude, are you okay?”

It was Brian. I rolled over and faced him, swatting him away as he tried to set me straight. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

He watched me as I massaged my forehead, wincing. “What happened?” he asked.

I grunted, “God, Brian, how could I be so stupid?”

He chuckled, “Tell me something I don’t know.” He sat on the chair across from the bed. “I passed by Cass on the way here.” He pursed his lips, observing me as I settled back down into the bed completely. “I’m assuming you two must have talked.”

I was quiet a moment. Then I asked, “Did she… tell you about what happened?”

He shook his head. “But she looked like she had been crying the whole night last night.” He crossed his arms. “I can put two and two together and figure your black turtleneck yesterday had something to do with it.”

My gaze dropped. I murmured, "You'll hate me forever."

He shrugged. “I had half a mind to let Max snap your femurs, but then I decided that I’d rather do it myself.”

I grimaced.

“But I can’t beat a man while he’s down. So,” he smirked, “how can I help?”

I told him everything. The date. The kiss. The revelation. My self-hate. Her valiant confession that had caught me off-guard. Brian listened intently. His eyes glistened with his reactions, but he kept quiet until I was finished with everything. After it all, he murmured. “Wow, she really felt like that…” He shook his head and shrugged. “I mean, I knew she must’ve felt something for you, but it never occurred to me that it was that intense.” He looked me straight in the eye. “You’re a jerk, Jae.”

I rolled my eyes. “Alright, alright, well-established fact of the day.” I growled and leaned back against my pillow, exasperated. I didn’t know I could suck so much until today.

After a moment, Brian spoke up. "But you know, Jae… I'd rather that you be with her than any other guy."

My eyes darted to him, my interest piqued. He went on, “I've always known that she liked you, even if she never told me. It was obvious. Whenever she'd tell stories about you, I could see how much she liked you from her smile and the way her eyes lit up. And when the two of you are together, it’s like… it’s like there’s sunshine in the room.” Brian shrugged. “I mean, sure, you fight a lot, but you also bring out the best in each other.”

I stared at my legs, the blanket draped over them. “You know, I’ve been trying to run away from love all this time. Avoid mistakes, steer clear of surprises, and not freaking lose myself. But…”

I had denied it in front of everyone. I had locked it away for years. I couldn’t even be honest with myself. I had run away from it like the plague. But there could be no more lies.

“You were right, Brian. I’ve been blind this whole time. Through all that running away, I hadn’t realized I had already fallen in love.” I scoffed at myself. “And I was already making all the mistakes that came with it.” I bit my lip. “I think a part of me knew what I felt for her all this time. I just didn’t want to admit it.”

“So… what are you going to do now?”

I sighed and thought a moment. “I just…” I fingered the chain on my wrist. “I don’t think I want to run away anymore.”

I looked up. Brian was smiling at me. He stood up. “About f-cking time, dumbass.”

 

We were at the nurse’s desk, with the doctor wrapping up the conversation about what I needed to know before I got discharged. She prescribed Tylenol and told me to take it easy for a while. I would just be a little dizzy for a couple more hours, but over all, I would be back to normal by the next day. While my mother signed some forms, I brought out my phone.

_Hey Wonpil, sorry for missing the photoshoot earlier today. How about we reschedule for tomorrow?_

Almost immediately after I had sent the message, my phone started buzzing. I picked up.

“Oh my God, Jae, are you okay???” Wonpil panicked on the other side of the line.

“God, Wonpil, I’m alright. Relax.” I grunted, stepping away, out of earshot from my mom.

“Huhu alright, that’s good to hear. I was so scared when they said you were at the hospital,” he sounded like he was about to burst into tears.

I massaged the bridge of my nose. His overreactions were stressing me out. “Dude, I’m fine.” I sighed. “… Thanks for getting Brian. And telling Cass.”

He giggled, “You’re welcome!”

“So yeah, I’d like to make up for today.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want to model for us anymore,” Wonpil pointed out, puzzled.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t thinking straight.” I retorted. “Honestly, I haven’t been, for a while.” I grinned. “Come on, man. I owe it to you.”

The delighted surprise was almost palpable through the phone. I could hear Wonpil jumping up and down from the other side. “Oh my God, oh my God! The others will be so pumped to hear about this! I’ll tell them right away!”

“Wait, before that, I have some suggestions to make.”

 

The sky over the burbling river was beginning to turn pink, and Wonpil was still busy tugging my collar into place and brushing dust off my shoulders. I was wearing a navy blue button-down, jeans and sneakers. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but Wonpil had insisted that he wanted everything to look “perfect.”

I must’ve looked troubled, because Wonpil paused and looked me in the eye. “Hey.”

I glanced up at him. He smiled. “She’ll come.”

My forehead still crinkled. “You don’t know that.”

He shrugged. “We don’t know that the sun will rise tomorrow, either.”

I stared at him. Perhaps there were times when I should give Wonpil more credit.

At that moment, Wonpil’s phone rang. He whipped it out of his pocket and checked the message. “It’s Brian! He says Cass is rounding the corner!”

I felt the blood drain from me, and my eyes grew large. My knees threatened to buckle. Immediately, Wonpil placed his hand firmly on my shoulder, and suddenly I felt like I was rooted into the ground. “You’ll be fine.”

He gave me a quick pat and then skedaddled away. Wait, he was just going to leave me here? But–

From the corner of my eye, I could see her approaching the steps on the other side of the river. I snapped to face her. The moment I saw her, it was like all my hesitation melted away. It reminded me of the feelings I had just learned how to decipher.

I wasn’t a hundred percent sure of what I was going to say. I was scared it would fall on dead ears, or that something I’d say would come out wrong. All I knew was that I meant it all.

No more excuses.

She spotted me and stopped in her tracks. Her anxious face shifted to one of surprise. I smiled with pursed lips – a timid greeting. Brian, who had brought her here, halted at the head of the stairs and motioned for her to go on. As she climbed down, Brian gave me a thumbs up and mouthed, “Fighting!”

I gave him a faint nod, and then turned my attention to Cass. She slowly went down the stairs, approaching the riverside opposite me cautiously. Two and a half meters of twilight-shimmering water lay between us, with nothing but a path of stepping stones bridging the gap.

I wanted to talk about this here – where we had met, where I had gone when I felt like giving up on her, and where I had broken her heart. I wanted this to also be the place where the rest of our story began.

She stood across me with the wind running through her hair and sweeping around her white dress. I whispered, just audible enough over the water, “Hi.”

“Jae, your hair…”

I nodded. I had dyed it black. The way my hair really was. I wasn’t wearing my glasses, either. Wonpil had gotten me new contacts – clear ones. The frames of my glasses were no longer in the fringes of everything I saw. It was like the world had gotten a little wider.

“I wanted to just be myself for this. Plain and simple.” I managed to look her in the eyes. “I have something to say.”

She stared at me, a little bewildered – but willing to listen. I took a step unto one of the stones in the river, making my first move towards her. “You know me. I’m a little loud, and a little dramatic. Kind of reckless and impulsive, too. Maybe a little too stubborn.”

She half-smiled. I smirked and skipped to another stone. “But… I wouldn’t exactly call myself confident.” I shrugged, and my gaze dropped. “I didn’t like myself too much. I thought I understood what I was, and I knew my shortcomings. I thought I’d just have to bear things as they were – accept that this was just the lot in life I was stuck with. I drew a line around that definition of myself and… I didn’t want to challenge it. Maybe I had built a wall around myself but… it kept me together.”

I advanced to the next stone. “I thought anything else wasn’t only unknown and unpredictable, but _wrong –_ threateningly wrong. And love… love was guaranteed to throw everything upside down. Love would change everything about how I understood everything. It’s like…” The river slipped between the rocks, tumbling and splashing against the fall of the land. “A storm,” I murmured.

“Wild and uncontainable. It wasn’t something I could control. I thought its waves would swirl me around and shatter the raft keeping me afloat from the dark depths of myself. I was just… scared and desperate not to drown.” I breathed, fighting to keep my voice even. “I was convinced of that. At least my mind was.”

I lopped closer to her side of the river. “Love is scary, and it scared me before I understood it. I thought I’d lose myself to love. But maybe the truth was that I was losing myself to fear.” My voice dropped a little. “And soon fear was behind everything I was doing… even if I didn’t want to do any of it.” I frowned. “I’m guilty of turning a beautiful thing monstrous. I think I caught on to that much, and it made me hate myself more. After I finally pieced it all together, I wanted to die. But… you made me realize something.”

I finally looked up at her. She watched me with bated breath, taking everything in with a wide-eyed absorption. One more stone forward, and I was almost to her. “All this time, I had been acting in ways I never thought I would. I was doing more than I ever thought I could be bothered to. I was standing up to things that were bigger than me. And every time I thought I was done, somehow I always kept going.” I half-grinned, shrugging. “I was better than I thought I was.”

I took a final stride ahead. Standing before her, I smiled. “Love is scary. But when it’s real… it makes you brave, too.”

Her mouth opened and her lips shivered, but she was too overwhelmed for her thoughts to form into words. I leaned in and whispered in her ear, “I love you, Cassandra. I’m sorry for everything it took to make me realize that. But even if it’s not perfect, or easy, or simple – I’m best with you.”

At that moment her arms flung around me, and the force knocked us into the river with a splash. We fumbled to find each other in the bubbling water, and we caught on to each other’s shoulders. The riverbed was just deep down enough for us to scramble to stand on, half-floating. We held on to each other, gasping for air. I started laughing. She did too.

“Remember how you asked me in the janitor’s closet when I’d quit?” she suddenly asked.

“Uh, yeah?” I said, recalling the moment.

“Never.” She shook her head, smiling from ear to ear. “I forgive you, Jae. And I’m never going to quit loving you.”

I laughed again and closed the gap between us. Our shadows rippled into one, and the dusty gold of the setting sun seemed to touch nothing else apart from us. Whatever timid self-doubt had taken root in us was rinsed away under the gentle flow of earnest faith. All the hesitant confessions of our hearts were condensed into the honest sweetness of our shared breath. The dam of five years of pent up emotions finally broke open its flood gates, and its torrents rushed feverishly through us like a new spring. I kissed her between smiles and giggles. And I felt like I had tasted water for the very first time.

Screw happy endings. I was ready to begin a thousand wild adventures and live a hundred different lives with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU FOR READING ALL THE WAY TO THE END!!! It’s been great writing this, and I hope you had just as much fun reading this as I did writing it. I’m happy and grateful that you spent your time going down this journey with me. ‘Til next time!
> 
> Also, I did some research on concussions, and apparently it’s bad news if you’re out for more than minute HAHAHAHAHA. It would be categorized as a severe concussion, and being unconscious for more than 30 minutes (in the story, I estimated that Jae was knocked out for around two hours) supposedly indicates a more serious brain injury than a concussion. But this is fiction, and let’s just roll with what we have HAHAHHAHA. I promise to do better research next time!


	11. Epilogue: Photograph

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the epilogue was the reason for 11 chapters HAHAHAHA

Dowoon was rummaging through the boxes in the attic, looking for one of his old gaming consoles. He had just seen a video online about an old rhythm game he used to like so much, and he was aching to play one again.

As he opened boxes to check for its contents – his dad sucked at labeling them – he stumbled upon an old picture. Perplexed, he pulled it out and studied it a moment. It was a little worn, but the colors and faces were still bright and clear. He recognized everyone in the picture, but it was just… weird. And it wasn’t just because two of his ahjussis were making weird faces in the forefront of the photo. He flipped it to see if anything was written on its back, and sure enough, saw that the date stamped on the back was from seven years before he was born. That meant it was more than twenty years old now.

He took the picture downstairs, totally forgetting about the rhythm game he wanted to play. He entered the dining room, where his dad was scrolling on his phone while sipping on boba from the convenience store next door.

“Dad?”

“Gimme a second, Dowoon, let me just send this tweet.” He tapped on his phone and then looked up, adjusting his glasses. “What’s up?”

“I was looking through some of the boxes in the attic, and then I found this.” Dowoon handed his father the photo. His father took it. When he saw what it was, he covered his face, a little embarrassed, but snickered.

“I don’t get what happened.” Dowoon said. “What were you and mom doing in the river?”

“We fell into it.” Jae replied, leaning back against the chair. “Or maybe you could say we leapt in.” Jae smirked, chuckling and looking up at his son. “Or maybe it was a bit of both.”

“… Dad, you’re not making any sense,” Dowoon said. “This is why I always beat you when we play video games.”

Jae pointed at him. “Hold it right there or I’m telling your mom.”

“Okay, okay, but what happened?”

Jae stared at the picture. Then he smiled and leaned towards Dowoon.

“This was the day I started believing in love.” He tilted his head. “Do you know what it takes to believe in love?”

Dowoon shrugged.

Jae smiled. “You have to believe in yourself and in the people around you.” He tapped on the photo. “The people here taught me that.”

At the left-hand corner of the picture, nearer the camera, were Wonpil and Brian. Wonpil was the one holding up the camera, and he was obviously tiptoeing and stretching his neck to be caught in the frame of the picture. He was smiling sunnily while giving a thumbs up. Brian was slightly tilted to his profile, and he was cheekily smiling like he had something mischievous in mind. And a few feet behind, in the upper right-hand corner of the picture, completely soaked and floating in the water, were Jae and Cass, their lips still locked and completely oblivious to their two friends taking a picture.


End file.
